Joint Programme

Partnership for Good Governance

An international conference on Advancing gender equality through training for judges and prosecutors brought together judicial training institutions, judges, prosecutors and policy-makers from across Europe to Chisinau, Republic of Moldova. The event organised in partnership with the Moldovan National Institute of Justice focused on the crucial role of judicial training in ensuring women’s effective access to justice and addressing violence against women.

Ivana Jelić, Vice-President of the European Court of Human Rights and Helmut Tichy, member of the Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, underlined that systematic gender-sensitive training is essential for building fair and effective justice systems. Training must move beyond ad hoc initiatives and become more structured and mandatory, in line with European standards. Such training strengthens the ability of justice professionals to deliver fair decisions and does not interfere with judicial independence.

Discussions highlighted the significant progress achieved through regional co-operation, particularly among judicial training institutions in the Eastern Partnership.

The conference also provided an opportunity to exchange experiences with representatives of judicial training institutions from European Union member states, in co-operation with the European Judicial Training Network. These discussions emphasised the added value of sharing methodologies, including mentoring schemes and practice-oriented training, to address challenges such as gender bias in judicial decision-making.

The conference concluded with a shared commitment to further strengthen co-operation among judicial training institutions, promote high-quality and mandatory training, and ensure the effective implementation of relevant European standards.

The event was organised as part of the European Union and Council of Europe joint programme “Partnership for Good Governance”, co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe, and implemented by the Council of Europe, in the framework of the regional project “Women's Access to Justice: implementing Council of Europe gender equality and violence against women standards.”