On 15-16 February 2016, in partnership with the Georgian Law Firms Association, the Council of Europe organised training for lawyers on fair trial standards. The aim of the training was to improve the knowledge of legal professionals concerning the recent case law of the ECtHR in relation to fair trials and to enable them to better defend their clients in court.

The training was carried out by Mr Jeremy McBride, an international expert on European Convention on Human Rights and Ms Nana Mchedlidze, Tbilisi City Court Expert on the ECHR and Mr. Davit Kvachantiradze, a lawyer and criminal law expert.  The experts outlined guarantees for a fair trial foreseen under Article 6 of the ECHR. Together with the participants, they discussed the application of Article 6 in civil and administrative proceedings and overviewed the main concepts  of Article 6 of the ECHR such as the hearing of a case by an impartial tribunal; the presumption of innocence and the right to defense; admissibility of evidence obtained as a result of the infringement of Convention rights; the plea agreement; the rules regarding interrogating witnesses and impossibility of witness cross-examination; and the right to defense from self-incrimination and protection from entrapment.

At the end of the training, the participants reviewed a case, specially written for them by the experts.

The training took place under the EU/CoE Joint Project "Application of the European Convention of Human Rights and harmonisation of national legislation and judicial practice in Georgia in line with European Standards", which is funded through CoE-EU Programmatic Cooperation Framework for Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus.