The first Winter Human Rights School “National Implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights in the Republic of Moldova: remedies to enhance the quality of justice” was organised by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and the Council of Europe on 6-8 December 2017 in the Republic of Moldova. 22 prosecutors and judges from the Resource Group of Young Judges and future trainers of the NIJ enhanced their knowledge and consolidated their professional capacities on the application of the European Convention on Human Rights (the Convention) through its interpretation in the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) at the national level.

The three-day training was an excellent opportunity for the participants to gain in-depth knowledge on the Compendium “European Convention on Human Rights: commentary on the European Court of Human Rights judgments against the Republic of Moldova” (Commentary) in order to deepen the understanding of the Court’s case-law with respect to Moldova and facilitate the use of the Commentary.

The Commentary was prepared by the NIJ in partnership with the Supreme Court of Justice with the financial support of the Council of Europe and was issued in the summer of 2017. The publication contains 196 judgments and 40 decisions of the Court against Moldova from 1997 until 31 December 2015. It also provides a set of useful recommendations on the application of selected articles of the Convention that should guide judges, prosecutors and lawyers in their daily activity with regard to the application of the Convention standards at the national level.  

The NIJ trainers trained young judges and prosecutors on the substance of the Commentary with the focus on the methodology. The lawyer of the Registry of the Court facilitated a session on how to use the Court’s case-law database (HUDOC) effectively.  

In addition to the theoretical part, a significant time of the training was dedicated to the practical aspect, i.e. the participants were provided with case studies and were asked to identify relevant Court’s case-law, select concrete quotes and reasoning from the Court’s judgments when working on the preparation of their own court decision on the given case at the local level.

The Winter Human Rights School encouraged the participants to make use of the Commentary in their daily work which would result in a better application of the Convention and harmonisation of the Court’s case-law at the national level, aiming at further improving the administration of justice in Moldova.

The activity was organised in the framework of the Council of Europe project “Support to criminal justice reforms in the Republic of Moldova” financed by the Government of Denmark.