The introduction of a unified approach to the organization of court proceedings is a step towards the establishment of transparent standards of justice
On 31 August, the Court of Appeal of Odesa region hosted a meeting of the working group of the international project “The Court, Citizens, Society, State: Cooperation for Change” with the participation of project coordinators, representatives of Odesa judicial community, scientists, lawyers, as well as members of the regional mission of the European Union Advisory Mission (EUAM).
The topic of the discussion was the presentation of foreign experience (by the example of the Netherlands and Bosnia and Herzegovina) of organizational assistance for civil and criminal legal proceedings aiming at introducing European standards of judicial organization in Ukraine, taking into account national legislation, to improve the efficiency of justice in a purely logistic plane.
During the meeting, the adviser on the rule of law of the regional office of EUAM in Odesa, Simon van der Schenk informed the audience about the tasks of EUAM mission in Ukraine, which is to provide strategic consultations and establish a dialogue between the public and law enforcement and judicial authorities.
Also, taking into account the purpose of creating an international project, namely the introduction of new forms and methods of judicial administration that are oriented to people’s needs and requirements of society, Simon van der Schenk presented for discussion by participants of the working group the instruction for conducting criminal proceedings which contains unified procedures for dealing with criminal cases in the courts of the Netherlands. It was stressed out by Simon van der Schenk that this instruction is not fixed at the legislative level, it is the result of a joint agreement between the General Prosecutor’s Office and the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, an example of the so-called “soft law”, designed to improve the judges’ efficiency and, as a consequence, to ensure high quality justice.
At the end of the meeting, the participants expressed their thoughts on further joint discussions with a purpose of development and implementation of uniform transparent and understandable for visitors of the court the standards of justice.