OSCE conducts seminar for judges from relocated administrative courts in Eastern Ukraine on human rights protection

An OSCE-supported two-day seminar on the protection of human rights and application of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for 60 judges working in the relocated administrative courts from Donetsk and Luhansk regions concluded in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, today 3 December 2015.  

Organized by the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine in co-operation with the Higher Administrative Court of Ukraine and the joint Council of Europe-European Union project, the seminar gave the judges an opportunity to discuss their everyday challenges, including lack of access to documents and court materials. The judges of the Higher Administrative Court presented the generalization of the court practice in Ukraine as a useful development for the judges of the lower instances.

The OSCE Project Co-ordinator supported the participation of two experts in this seminar: Vakhtang Tordia, member of Georgia’s High Council of Justice, and Nazar Kulchytskyi, former Government representative of Ukraine to the ECtHR. Tordia shared the Georgian experience on access to justice on the territories outside of the government’s control, while Kulchytskyi led the discussion on the implementation of ECtHR decisions on the current situation in Ukraine.

Stefano Piedimonte Bodini, Head of ECtHR’s Research Department, shared his expertise on general admissibility rules for applications from the territories affected by the military conflicts.

The seminar is part of the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine’s project on enhancing the coherence of Administrative Court Practice in Ukraine, implemented at the request of the Higher Administrative Court and funded by the Government of Germany.