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Description
Programme outcome the project contributes to: “Improved application of European legal framework by the Bulgarian judiciary”.
The project aims at ensuring the national framework for effective implementation of the European Court of Human Rights judgments and to establishing a human-rights-based approach amongst the justice institutions in Bulgaria in line with the principles of the efficiency of justice and the rule of law. The project aims at ensuring synergies between the responsible state actors in implementing the general measures prescribed by the European Court of Human Rights in its case law against Bulgaria and the relevant human rights standards.The project shall include, inter alia, the following activities:
- Establishing of an effective implementation of the European Court’s of Human Rights judgments and suggestions of procedures and distribution of responsibilities to the appropriate state bodies;
- Designation and training of contact points within the administration of the executive, Parliament and the judiciary;
- Introduction of mandatory human rights law subject in the curriculum of the law faculties;
- Execution of European Court’s of Human Rights judgements requiring effective protection of the rights of vulnerable groups through development of an action plan;
- Ensuring accessibility of Human Rights Law materials through translation of European Court’s of Human Rights judgments and other human rights related documents and publishing of human rights bulletins summarising new Court’s case-law;
- Capacity building of national experts.
Summary of project results
The project aims to tackle challenges related the current ineffective execution of many of the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter “the Court” or “the ECtHR”) judgments against Bulgaria.
The work on the execution of the judgments is closely related to the existence of effective domestic remedies and to high level of awareness of the ECtHR case-law. Therefore, the effective implementation of the ECtHR judgment is a prerequisite for effective decision making process within the judiciary, ensuring fair trial, protection of the rights of all parties to the proceedings and building consistent domestic case-law in line with the international standards. It has been identified that a main reason for the non-enforcement of the judgments is the lack of good cooperation between the different stakeholders. Traditionally, it has been understood that the enforcement of the Court’s judgments is within the prerogatives of the executive whereas it is in fact a joint responsibility of all three powers – the judiciary, the executive and the legislator.
The project addresses the lower level of awareness among certain institutions about their actual role in executing the said judgements of the ECtHR, the insufficient compliance of legislation with international standards and its inconsistency, the need for continuous human rights training in law schools, as well as the need to guarantee the rights of the most vulnerable groups in society.
The project first analysed the status quo of the execution of judgements of the European Court of Human Rights in light of the national legislation and practices in order to identify the deficiencies leading to Bulgaria’s dramatically negative record in the execution statistics and then to propose an effective national mechanism to facilitate the execution process. Basing on that the project elaborated and proposed a national mechanism to facilitate the process of execution of judgements of the ECtHR.
Addressing the need to guarantee the rights of the most vulnerable groups in society, Action plans were prepared for the execution of two groups of ECtHR’s judgements – institutional representation of children with mental disorders outside their families and implementation of decisions on Roma evictions.
In cooperation, the Norwegian partner performed an evaluation of the effectiveness of teaching Human Rights in the Law Faculties in the Bulgarian Universities and drafted an analysis followed by Guidelines on the introduction of Human Rights teaching in the higher education in Law in Bulgaria. Those Guidelines were complimented by a thought curricula of suitable courses to be taught. The project included capacity building activities for the introduction of human rights education in the law faculties of universities, including model curricula drafted for courses at all levels of the higher education.
The project provided training materials on human rights as over 100 acts of the ECtHR were translated (judgment, guides, factsheets, overviews, etc.), and 12 Bulletins on ECtHR’s case law against Bulgaria published.
Decree of the Council of Ministers on the establishment of a National Coordination Mechanism for the implementation of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights proposed and communicated. Related analyses and study visits organised.
Action plans for the execution of two (groups of) ECtHR’s judgements – institutional representation of children with mental disorders outside their families and implementation of decisions on Roma evictions.
The Norwegian Centre for Human Rights at the University of Oslo prepared Analysis of the Effectiveness of Human Rights Teaching in Higher Education in Bulgaria. Guidelines for Introducing Human Rights Teaching in Bulgarian Universities was prepared. As an annex, the partners also drafted model curricula for human rights courses for the general Master''s, specialised Master''s and PhD programmes.
A number of ECtHR’s Guides and Factsheets (reflecting the most recent case law and developments in Law on the ECHR) have been translated in Bulgarian.
This project made possible the achievement of a long-standing agenda – the introduction of Human Rights Law among the fundamental courses to be thought during the university education in Law.
Summary of bilateral results
The project was implemented in partnership with the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights at the University of Oslo. The main objective of the project was to prepare and introduce human rights education as compulsory in the law faculties of the universities in Bulgaria. The Norwegian partner has made a key contribution to the successful implementation of this objective. The Norwegian Centre for Human Rights developed the PhD programme in Human Rights. The work included the creation and implementation of survey instruments to measure attitudes on the topic among teachers and students at Bulgarian universities. The Norwegian partner delivered trainings in Bulgaria and hosted a working visit of Bulgarian university lecturers, future human rights trainers.This partnership brought in valuable international knowledge, judgment and expertise in particular in the field of Human Rights education as a specific objectives of the project was the modernization of the learning environment for legal practitioners. Believing that we do best when we collaborate, the project was intended to build bridges between the scholars from the Norwegian Cent and their Bulgarian counterparts. In the end many valuable professional links were established, which is always the most sustainable result. As IPO, the Council of Europe reiterated its capacity to support implementation of this PdP through facilitating the use of existing e-learning courses on the Council of Europe’s European Programme for Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals (HELP) platform.