More than 160 judges and prosecutors from the Western Balkans, that is, from Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, participated in the online regional event organised for the launching of the HELP course on Procedural Safeguards in Criminal Proceedings and Victims' Rights.

The participants were welcomed by Ana Maria TELBIS, the Head of the Justice and Human Rights Training Division, who presented the course. Jasminka PERUNICIC ALLEN, Senior Project Officer, introduced the participants with the HELP methodology and the HELP in the Western Balkans project. The event served to exchange ideas and domestic court practise in respective Beneficiaries as the course will be implemented in separate groups in different languages of the Western Balkans.

The HELP course Procedural Safeguards in Criminal Proceedings and Victims' Rights is one of priority courses for the HRTF funded project “HELP in the Western Balkans”. HELP online courses have already been recognised as an effective tool in terms of general measures for the execution of the ECtHR judgments. By increasing the capacities of domestic legal professionals to directly apply the ECHR, the project HELP in the Western Balkans aims to contribute to: decreasing the number of cases arriving before the ECHR and increasing the number of closed cases by the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers, subject to the supervision of the execution of the ECtHR's judgments.

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 This free HELP online course was developed combining both the fundamental procedural rights of accused and suspected persons in criminal proceedings (focusing on EU Directive topics, notably the presumption of innocence) and the rights of victims of crime (emphasis on access to justice.

The course was developed by the Council of Europe HELP Programme thanks to EU support, being financed by the “EU-CoE HELP in the EU” Project.

The course was finalized in August 2019.