Partnership for Good Governance II 2019-2021

Newsletter 16 | January-April 2020

PGG and the Covid-19 crisis: The protection and promotion of European citizens rights is essential

While the COVID-19 situation is evolving fast and has developed into an unprecedented crisis in Europe and in the whole world, we need to stay united and to continue working together to protect and promote the rights and freedoms of European citizens. The Partnership for Good Governance (PGG) 2019-2021 activities are implemented to the best extent possible, in line with the objectives of the Programme and with everybody’s safety as the foremost concern while pursuing the agreed objectives.

Verena Taylor, Director of the Office of the Directorate General of Programmes - Council of Europe

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Continuous support to strengthen Georgian criminal justice system

In the recent years, all over Europe, criminal justice systems have faced new types of challenges: greater complexity of cases due to changes in the societies, development of new technologies and the international crime; increased workload and at the same time growing

expectations from the public. In this context,the PGG II Project “Supporting the criminal justice reforms - tackling criminal aspects of the judicial reforms in Georgia”, provides active support to bring criminal procedure legislation in Georgia closer to European Standards, in particular the European Convention of Human Right. In April 2020, a Review of the Georgian criminal legislation was launched as well as two HELP online courses for legal professionals:

Below are a series of interviews carried out on the occasion of the study visit of Georgian judicial candidates in February 2020.

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Improvement of the system of law enforcement in the Republic of Moldova through self-evaluation and new ICT tools

In the framework of the PGG project “Support to further strengthening the efficiency and quality of the judicial system in the Republic of Moldova”, a team of experts from the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) and the International Union of Judicial Officers (UIHJ) carried out on 2-3 March 2020 a mission to support further development of the Moldovan system of enforcement of court decisions in civil and administrative matters. The European experts (representing, in particular, France, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Romania) met with bailiffs, representatives of the Ministry of Justice, National Union of Bailiffs and other authorities, and of major actors of the enforcement system.

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Results of a public survey on the perception of discrimination in Belarus

A new report on the perception of discrimination in Belarus has been published within the framework of the PGG regional project “Strengthening access to justice through non-judicial redress for victims of discrimination, hate speech and hate crime in the Eastern Partnership countries”. The Anti-discrimination Department of the Council of Europe, in co-operation with the National Centre of Legislation and Legal research of the Republic of Belarus, initiated in autumn 2019 a public survey to assess the perception of discrimination among the general public, the awareness of minority rights and the perception of the need for legislation to address discrimination in Belarus. The survey was run by the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of (NAS) Belarus, which produced a report with the main findings. The report is available in Russian and English.

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Venice Commission adopted opinions for Armenia and the Republic of Moldova

Two opinions were recently adopted by

the Venice Commission under the Partnership for Good Governance:

One opinion was prepared jointly with the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR), on draft amendments pertaining to political party regulation of Armenia, aiming at helping to further political pluralism in line with international standards on political party regulation.
A second joint opinion was prepared with the Directorate General of Human Rights and Rule of Law (DGI) of the Council of Europe,on a draft law amending and supplementing the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova with respect to the Superior Council of Magistracy.