Ensuring the best interests of the child in civil court proceedings in Slovenia
What is the project?
The European Union-Council of Europe Joint Project “Ensuring the best interests of the child in civil court proceedings in Slovenia” aims to improve the protection of children’s rights in civil court proceedings in Slovenia through ensuring the best interests of the child. Implementation of the Project contributes to the ongoing reform in Slovenia on upholding the rights of the child and becoming a pioneer country spreading excellence in child-friendly justice in all EU Member States.
While Slovenia has made big steps forward for the protection of the rights of the child in criminal law proceedings, significant improvements are still needed to uphold the rights of the child in the area of civil law, particularly as regards delays in family law proceedings involving children. According to the Slovenian Supreme Court report, the main two challenges to overcome these delays are:
The lack of court experts in clinical psychology, who are the most appointed experts in family law proceedings.
The excessive use of legal instruments, as the law is often ineffective during the process and there is lack of systemic approach.
The project is co-funded by the European Union via the Technical Support Instrument, and co-funded and implemented by the Council of Europe’s Children's Rights Division in close co-operation with the Slovenian Ministry of Justice and DG REFORM from 1 September 2023 to 28 February 2026.
Development of a comprehensive Strategy and Action plan to reform Slovenia’s legal framework in the field of civil court proceedings involving children
The project will support an analysis of the current legal, institutional and policy frameworks in civil court proceedings involving children to be followed by a gap analysis of the required framework and a set of recommendations for the revision of the Slovenian civil procedure legislation. This preparatory work will lead to the development and dissemination of a Strategy and Action plan on the implementation of the required changes to enable a systemic child-friendly response and to ensure the best interests of the child in civil court proceedings.
Implementation of the Strategy and the Action plan
The Project will support the Slovenian authorities in the implementation of the developed Strategy and Action Plan on the application of the required changes to enable a systemic child-friendly and quick response and to ensure the best interests of the child in civil court proceedings. This implementation phase will focus on a number of selected actions from the Action Plan with the support of relevant national and international stakeholders. The implementation report will be presented at the final conference of the Project.
In parallel with the Strategy and Action plan, a training needs analysis will be conducted. The Project will then develop training materials, tools, mechanisms and training programmes to ensure that the capacity of the professionals working with and for children in civil law proceedings in Slovenia can be strengthened, and the number of court experts capable of providing expert opinions in family court proceedings can be increased. A training of trainers will be organised, and a pool of national experts will be created.
Awareness-raising activities on the best interests of the child in civil court proceedings will be organised to present the priorities and recommendations identified during the Project to decision makers and relevant government agencies staff, but also to professionals working with and for children and the general population.
Who do we work with?
The participation of representatives of the relevant bodies and institutions is foreseen. Civil society organisations and academia will also be involved in Project activities and will contribute to identifying existing shortcomings of the justice system for children in Slovenia and formulating concrete potential solutions.
The Project targets relevant authorities and legal and non-legal professionals dealing with civil law proceedings involving children including judges, magistrates, court experts and representatives of the Ministry of Justice. They will benefit directly from the Project through reports, analysis and tools on how to modify the legal framework, as well as capacity building activities.
The final beneficiaries of the Project are children involved in civil law proceedings, who will eventually benefit from improved access to justice, more effective state response and more child-centred and child-friendly practices during civil proceedings.
The Slovenian society as a whole will ultimately benefit from the Project with the wider public reached through awareness-raising and promotional activities.
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