Development of a Qualification Programme for Magistrates Beyond the Scope of the One Implemented by the NIJ. Development of Training Modules for Implementation of Specialised Trainings for Magistrates

Consortium ‘FPI-IDEIN’, established through a partnership between Law and Internet Foundation and Idein Ltd., was elected an executor of a tender, namely ‘Development of a qualification programme for magistrates beyond the scope of the National Institute of Justice. Development of training modules for implementation of specialised trainings. Implementation of specialised trainings for magistrates’ assigned by the Supreme Judicial Council. The contract is implemented under ‘Strengthening the competence and professional qualification of judges, prosecutors and investigators as well as administrative heads of office of the judiciary’s bodies through organisation and provision of trainings by the Supreme Judicial Council’ Project.

The contract entails the following activities:

• Analysis of the training necessities (nation-wide)
• Development of a programme of the Supreme Judicial Council for professional qualification of magistrates beyond the scope of the one implemented by the National Institute of Justice
• Development of training modules on 9 specific topics: enforcement of energy law; intellectual property and EU customs law; contract law and international law; administrative penal law; scope, aims, and legal aspects of financial profiling; court proceedings of placement of a child outside the family guardianship under the Child Protection Act, incl. termination of the placement and contradictory case law analysis; issues under the State Responsibility for Damages Act, incl. grounds for actions and case law analysis; financial managements and the enforcement of the Public Finance and Control Act; training of Professional Ethics Committees in the judiciary.
• Selection of 36 trainers, including international experts
• Implementation of 4 ‘train-the-trainers’ activities
• Organisation and implementation of 28 specialised trainings for no less than 500 judges, prosecutors, investigators and administrative heads of office for the five appellate regions according to the programme for 2014/2015
• Analysis and evaluation of the effectiveness of the implemented trainings
• Preparation and printing of handbooks on the above-mentioned legal fields, a handbook on financial management and a reference book for the work of the ethical committees

The implementation of a project of this scale is an ambitious endeavour and first of its kind for Bulgaria. It appears to be a challenge not only from the perspective of developing a training programme of the Supreme Judicial Council for professional qualification of magistrates beyond the scope of the one implemented by the National Institute of Justice, but also in view of the wide range of topics covered within the framework of the specialised trainings.

The project ‘Strengthening the competence and professional qualification of judges, prosecutors and investigators as well as administrative heads of office of the judiciary’s bodies through organisation and provision of trainings by the Supreme Judicial Council’ is implemented with the financial support of Operative Programme ‘Administrative Capacity’ 2007-2013 within the framework of priority axis II ‘Human Resources management’, sub-priority 2.4 ‘Competent judiciary and effective management of the human resources’.