Judiciary Under Spotlight
Institute for Policy & Legals Studies (IPLS) – Lead
Open Society Foundation for Albania (OSFA) – Partner
Centre for Legal Empowerment (CLE) – Partner
Beneficiaries:
Albanian Civil Society at large and Albanian Justice Institutions.
01.2023 - 01.2026
Overall Objective
Overall objective: Empowerment of Albanian CSOs and other key stakeholders to exert an effective watchdog role over the functioning of the Albanian judiciary.
Summary of the Project
The project “Judiciary Under Spotlight” seeks to empower Albanian CSOs and other key stakeholders to conduct monitoring and evaluation of the functioning of the Albanian judiciary in compliance with legal, procedural and best practice standards by endeavouring to achieve three outcomes:
– A Judicial Monitoring Framework developed and made available for use by civil society actors;
– Increased and sustainable capacity of CSOs/key stakeholders to rigorously monitor judicial activity;
– Monitoring exercise on judicial performance implemented in selected courts and analytical reports published and discussed.
In order to achieve these outcomes, this project has undertaken to effectively train a large number of organisations of civil society, including law students and media organisations, from four big size regions of Albania (Tirana, Durresi, Vlora and Shkodra) to carry out in a professional way monitoring processes on the performance of the Albanian judiciary as per the applicable legal and procedural framework as well as the best international standards. The training activity will aim to transfer the indispensable know how on the contemporary standards, the applicable Albanian legal/procedural framework and the monitoring tools (essential indicators and data, and the methodology of their collection) on four key judicial activity areas:
(i) access to justice and fair trial;
(ii) judicial meritocracy;
(iii) judicial integrity;
and (iv) court transparency.
By the end of the training, which amount to a crash professional course on these four areas, the targeted organisations and actors of civil society will have obtained the required arsenal for conducting their independent monitoring exercises of the judicial activity. As an indispensable base and frame, under the first project objective “Develop a Judicial Monitoring Framework and make available for use to civil society actors”, 4 guides and ten Training Manuals will be prepared before the start of the training activity.
The Manuals will provide all necessary essentials of standards, legal references, judicial practices and relevant monitoring tools on the four targeted
areas of judicial activity (see further above) in such a way as to effectively enable the organisations/actors of civil society to carry out their own independent monitoring exercises. Further on, under Objective Two of the project “Increase the capacity of CSOs/key stakeholders to rigorously monitor judicial activity” about sixty (60) Albanian CSOs, including youth and media organisations, in addition to law students of main universities from Tirana, Durres, Shkoder and Vlore, will successfully undergo training in the targeted four areas of judicial activity and ways to develop a judicial sector benchmark monitoring/evaluation project.
Under the sub-granting scheme four selected courts from the four selected regions that will be subject to monitoring exercises by trained CSOs under the
project constitute the indirect beneficiaries.
Activities
– Preparation of four Judicial Monitoring Guides;
– Preparation of ten Manuals of Training;
– Organisation of at least 64 training events;
– Setup and operation of a dedicated web platform;
– Sub-Granting Activities;
– Set up of the application system;
– Informational sessions;
– Selection, approval and announcement of wining proposals;
– Monitoring and mentoring of the grantees.
Results
– At least four locally developed and innovative Judicial Monitoring Guides for CSOs/stakeholders in five crucial areas of judiciary activity: access to justice, fair trial, judicial integrity, meritocracy in judicial careers, court transparency;
– At least five Manuals of Training for Monitoring Judicial Performance in Albania;
– At least 60 Albanian CSOs, youth media and organisations both from the capital city and the regions successfully trained in four areas of judicial activity and ways to develop a judicial sector benchmark evaluation project. Training certificates distributed;
-A dedicated website to disseminate the Monitoring Guides, the Training Manuals and the CSOs’/key stakeholders’ judicial monitoring reports;
– A sound grant-making process for CSO support through a state-of-the-art project application and management system;
– Up to four winning proposals submitted by target groups successfully implemented in selected courts of the country;
– Know-how, good practices and lessons learnt exchanged among target groups in the project closing event. Recognition award provided for the best performing CSO/stakeholder project under the sub-granting scheme.
