The European Union and Council of Europe joint programme Partnership for Good Governance continues to work with advancing women’s access to justice and combating violence against women, aiming at improving the access to justice for women, children and the most vulnerable groups.

• Ensuring that the transfer in respect gender equality standards and access to justice from the legislative level to the practice and institutional levels is guaranteed as regards integrity, independence, quality, and accountability of the judiciary.
• Strengthening competences of national authorities to ensure substantive application and execution of European gender equality standards in line with the European Commission opinions on the application for membership of the European Union, GREVIO evaluation reports, and the Istanbul Convention.
• Ensuring the development of gender equality policies and practices, including in the area of access to justice, particularly on right to fair trial and the right to remedies.

The third phase of the Partnership for Good Governance includes a country-specific project in Azerbaijan and a regional project in this thematic area, as a continuation of the work done under the second phase of the joint programme. While the country-specific project will focus on strengthening mechanisms to prevent and combat violence against women and domestic violence in Azerbaijan in line with Council of Europe and other international standards, the regional project will address the remaining challenges, on changing the Eastern Partnership countries policies and practices in order to ensure that the justice chain is gender responsive, particularly for women victims of violence in line with the Istanbul Convention and other European standards.

Find more information on the Partnership for Good Goverance key areas of work >>