26/11/2018 - 28/11/2018
Kyiv - the Council of Europe's Office in Ukraine together with the National School of Judges of Ukraine, organised a training for trainers (ToT) of judges on "Election Dispute Resolution".
The training was attended by 20 judges of the administrative courts of Ukraine - trainers of regional training centres of the National School of Judges of Ukraine. In his opening speech, Mr Mårten Enberg, Head of the Council of Europe Office in Ukraine, underlined the urgency of this training course for Ukraine and the necessity to increase the confidence of Ukrainian citizens in the elections. Opening the training session, the Deputy Rector of the National School of Judges of Ukraine Ms Natalia Shuklyna noted that this training course was extremely relevant for judges of administrative justice, especially in the light of the country’s plans to hold presidential and parliamentary elections in 2019.
The course dealt with such topics as "International standards and principles of democratic elections", "Overview of national election law. Classification of electoral disputes", “Protection of the right to participate in elections and referendums according to the provisions of the Code on administrative procedures of Ukraine” and "The ECtHR case-law in the field of electoral disputes".
During this ToT many interactive forms of training were used. The team of experienced judges who worked on the course development, for a long time were teachers at the National School of Judges of Ukraine and its regional departments: the judge of the Donetsk Regional Administrative Court Oleksandr Zinchenko, the judge of the Cherkasy District Administrative Court Larisa Trofimova, Judge of the Kyiv Appeal Administrative Court Olena Gubska, Judge of the Odessa Regional Administrative Court Anna Samoiluk.
It is intended that, after approval, the course "Election dispute resolution" will be actively used by the regional centers of the National School of Judges in view of the forthcoming presidential and parliamentary elections.
The training course was developed by the National School of Judges of Ukraine as part of the Council of Europe Projects "Supporting constitutional and legal reforms, constitutional justice and assisting the Verkhovna Rada in conducting reforms aimed at enhancing its efficiency" and "Supporting the transparency, inclusiveness and integrity of electoral practice in Ukraine" within the framework of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine for 2018-2021.