RWI’s regional office in Amman held a high-level ceremony last week to launch a new Tunisian comparative research study titled “Protecting the rights of the child victim in the criminal justice system from the perspective of international standards.”
The objective of the study is to bring forward applicable judicial recommendations and solutions based on informed jurisprudence to overcome issues of non-conformity between international standards and national laws.
The event was held in Tunis under the patronage of the Minister of Justice and in cooperation with the High Judicial Institute of Tunisia.
The event was a platform for the dynamic assembly and exchange of 80 representatives of national and international entities including ministries, courts, prisons and correction facilities, as well as legal studies, research and training centres, and Tunisian media outlets. It was held with the active participation of the Swedish Ambassador for Tunisia, the presence of the European Union and the Legal Assistance Consortium.
The event also celebrated the issuance of three other regional knowledge products produced by the MENA Regional Programme and the judicial partner institutes.
These were:
- “Arab Jurisprudence in the Application of International Human Rights Conventions”
- “Arab Jurisprudence in the Application of International Conventions on the Rights of Women”
- “The Training Methodology on the Application of International Human Rights Conventions in the Curricula of Arab Judicial Institutes in the MENA Region”
“These meeting opportunities become meaningful only when shared knowledge is translated into real actions,” says Eman Siam, Senior MENA Program Officer.
In her speech Siam encouraged the attendees to apply the international human rights standards in their daily work benefiting from the tools introduced in the MENA programme publications.
“Such knowledge products, when integrated in the Tunisian Judicial Institute Curricula, will contribute in developing a new generation of judges with creative and critical thinking — judges that will come up with jurisprudence that applies international human rights standards,” says Carla Boukheir, Director of RWI’s regional office in Amman.
Dissemination Session Followed
In close cooperation with the Higher Judicial Institute of Tunisia, the day also included a dissemination session to participants from the judicial sector in Tunis, Tunisia.
The session is a first of a series of several meetings that will be held in three different governorates in Tunisia during 2017. The sessions aim at encouraging the judicial sector to use the tools and new methodology developed by RWI and the partner judicial institutes for the application of international human rights standards in their daily work.
The session gathered around 50 participants from the Court of First Instance in seven locations in Tunis, the Court of Appeal, the Prisons and Correction facilities, the Higher Institute of Law, the Observatory for Information, the Training, Documentation and Studies, and Legal & Judicial studies Centre.
The Higher Judicial Institute introduced the Tunisian comparative study, which was developed within RWI’s MENA programme.
The Higher Judicial Institute also introduced other publications developed by RWI and its judicial institute’s partners on the application of international standards in national judicial systems: the two regional Arab jurisprudence books and the Training Methodology in the Application of International Human Rights Standards.
“RWI’s Regional Office in Amman has been very keen to enrich the Arab Judiciary on producing not only national specific studies but also regional material that is adaptable to the local specificities of each of the seven countries engaged in this programme,” says Boukheir.
Siam stresses the importance of having material that makes sense in the local context. “During the presentation of the Regional Manual, I was thrilled to see how cleverly the training methodology in theapplication of international human rights standards has been adapted to meet the Tunisian context and laws,” she says.