ODIHR-sponsored summer school on criminal justice gets under way in Kazakhstan
TALGAR, Kazakhstan, 30 July 2007 - For the second year in a row, the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) has organized a summer school on criminal-justice issues in Central Asia.
This year's school opened today in the Kazakh city of Talgar for some thirty mid-career professionals from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
"The school provides an important forum for dialogue on criminal-justice issues in the region," said Alessandro Liamine, Political Affairs Adviser to the Delegation of the European Commission to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
"With representatives from all five Central Asian countries, participants will have an opportunity to learn from a variety of experiences, which they can then apply in their reform efforts in their own countries."
Participants include judges, prosecutors, researchers, and government officials. They will discuss the status of criminal-justice reforms in their countries with prominent international experts. Issues to be covered include the introduction of judicial authorization for arrest, human rights challenges of summary proceedings, the introduction of jury trials and justices of the peace, and the use of reconciliation and other alternatives to criminal prosecution.
"The reform of the criminal-justice sector is a formidable challenge for any state," said Vladimir Shkolnikov, the Head of the ODIHR's Democratization Department. "Criminal-justice systems are pressured to deal with crime efficiently, but they also have to uphold fundamental individual rights. This school will help participants better understand this important balance and empower them to achieve it in their professional capacities."
The summer school is funded by the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Commission through the EC/ODIHR Joint Programme on Criminal Justice in Central Asia.