JAD - Joint action against domestic violence

Project facts

Project promoter:
General Inspectorate of the Romanian Police
Project Number:
RO20-0007
Target groups
Civil servants/Public administration staff
Status:
Completed
Initial project cost:
€487,814
Final project cost:
€223,410
From Norway Grants:
€ 189,899
The project is carried out in:
Romania

More information

Description

The objective of the project is enhancing the capacity of the police and judicial authorities in Romania in fighting domestic violence with a view to applying a non-discrimination principle and victim-centred approach by means of increasing the knowledge of relevant professionals on the new legislation in the field of preventing and combating domestic violence and enhancing their capacity to deal with such cases. The project’s main activities are: carrying out of a small training needs survey, organisation of an initial conference, of a fact finding mission in Romania, a study visit and workshops in Norway and Romania, elaboration and distribution of training materials and manual for practitioners, a "train the trainers" session, 10 training sessions and an international final conference. The target groups of the project consists of police officers, prosecutors and judges from Romania involved in investigating, prosecuting, and judging cases of domestic violence. The partners' tasks in the project will be to support the implementation of the project and the objective of the project by participating in all the project activities.

Summary of project results

Domestic violence is a serious criminal and social problem that produces consequences on the life and health of the victims. The necessity of further protecting the citizens against domestic violence determined the adoption in Romania of the new legislative provisions in the field of preventing and combating domestic violence in May 2012. Thus, for the purpose of further increasing the protection of the victims of DV the legislative modifications introduced new protection instruments and obligations for the law enforcement and judiciary. However, it was concluded that the mere existence of the legislative provisions without proper enforcement by police officers, prosecutors and judges was not sufficient for preventing and combating domestic violence. Thus, the objective of the project was to increase the level of knowledge of the relevant professionals - police and judicial authorities in Romania with regard to the newly adopted legislation and thus, achieve their proper and efficient enforcement. For this purpose, the following activities were implemented: - A good practices guidelines for magistrates and police employees was developed. It was printed in 6000 copies in Romanian and distributed to the police officers, prosecutors and judges who deal with domestic violence cases. The guidelines was also translated to English and posted on the project’s dedicated webpage http://norwaygrants.politiaromana.ro/; - With the involvement of Romanian, Norwegian and Council of Europe’s experts, 40 Romanian trainers (22 policemen, 10 prosecutors and 8 judges) were trained; - 379 Romanian specialists involved in fighting domestic violence (police, prosecutors and judges) received professional training on the newest provisions in the field of preventing and fighting domestic violence and on European standards and best practices in the field, thus, the set indicator of 250 professionals was exceeded. By creating a valuable working instrument, respectively the good practices guidelines for magistrates and police employees and by training 379 professionals with regard to the most recent provisions of the national legislation, European standards and best practices, the project contributed to the achievement of the outcome of the Programme.

Summary of bilateral results

All the actions undertaken within the project were established, technically and substantively, in close cooperation of the project promoter with the DPPs, the Council of Europe and the Norwegian Police Directorate. Thus, the project contributed to achieving one of the major overall objectives of the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2009-2014, namely strengthening the bilateral relations and mutual understanding in the judiciary area between Norway and Romania by offering the ideal framework for benefiting from the Norwegian and Council of Europe’s expertise, know-how and best practice in the field of preventing and fighting domestic violence. On one hand, the Norwegian Police Directorate, through meetings, study visits, workshops etc., provided expertise for developing the training materials, providing training for the Romanian trainers, as well as by contributing to the elaboration of the guidelines for the use of the practitioners (magistrates and law enforcement). On the other hand, in its capacity of active international promoter of the protection of women from domestic and gender-based violence, the Council of Europe provided strategic advice and technical expertise during the implementation of the project and ensured compliance of the deliverables with the international and Council of Europe’s standards related to domestic and gender-based violence. With its extensive expertise and standards in the area of combating gender-based violence, experience gained from cooperation activities with the member states and its network of international experts, the involvement of the Council of Europe in the project complemented and enhanced the outputs of the project. Thus, as a result of the described close cooperation, the resulted deliverables were valuable and innovative and were a reflection of the achieved major exchange of best practices between the Council of Europe’s experts and Romanian and Norwegian specialists.