Civil Rights Defenders aimed to enhance implementation of European human rights standards by familiarising law students and judges from the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia) with cases and procedures of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and so improving their capacity to deal with these issues.
During the period from November 2016 to November 2017 Civil Rights Defenders has been working on improving capacities of 150 future legal professionals from 19 teams and fostering cooperation among legal practitioners from the Western Balkans. The project addressed the limited knowledge of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and its case law among students and judges in the Western Balkans by implementing its four main pillars/stages:
The entire competition process provided law students a unique opportunity to exercise and develop their analytical skills, increase their capacity to produce written legal briefs, and gave them a chance to plead cases before some of the Europe’s highest-profile judges. As a result, a total number of 150 law students have gained and improved their practical knowledge of the cases and the rules and procedures of the ECtHR.
Trainings for University teams
In the beginning of the preparatory phase for the Regional Moot Court Competition, 100 law students from 12 participating clubs had a one-day training done by a local expert who visited each club in their countries. The training provided them useful information in relation to the fictitious case, written briefs and the procedures of the upcoming competition.
Regional Moot Court Competition
During the second part of the preparatory phase a fictitious case was designed by Civil Rights Defenders and the Swedish legal experts associated with our organization. The fictitious case was focused on a human rights issue relevant for the region. It has been provided to the competing clubs approximately two months before the oral stage of the competition. In this stage the students analysed the fictitious case, wrote briefs as both the applicant and responding state and practiced their oral performance before the competition. When the clubs have prepared the written briefs, they were submitted to Civil Rights Defenders for assessment and graded by the Competition Board (selected by Civil Rights Defenders and consisted of international experts based outside the region). After submitting their written briefs, the students had several weeks to practice their oral performance before the competition took place.
At the oral pleading stage, that has taken place at the competition in Tirana, clubs competed before panels made up of judges from the region and judges of the ECtHR. The composition of the panels has also contributed to capacity-building of Western Balkan judges. Civil Rights Defenders has developed strong relations with the judges from the institutions in the region, both through Moot Court Competition and other relevant projects, making the participation of the judges in the Moot Court Competition certain. The participating judges are coming from the most prominent judiciary institutions, such as the European Court of Human Rights, High Judicial Councils, Constitutional and Supreme Courts, Offices of the State Agent before the ECtHR, etc.
The Eleventh Regional Moot Court Competition took place in March 2017, in Tirana, Albania. Twelve University teams from Albania (1), Bosnia and Herzegovina (2), Croatia (3), Macedonia (1), Montenegro (1), Serbia (3) and Slovenia (1) participated in the competition. The draw process placed teams in four different groups, giving them the opportunity to compete with different teams and qualify for semi-finals and in the end finals. In the final matches two teams that scored the most points competed, both as the applicant and responding state. Nis (Serbia) and Tirana (Albania) were the finalists and the winner of the Regional Moot Court Competition is the team from Nis (Serbia), earning the opportunity to compete in the Grand Finals in Strasbourg in November 2017, along with two teams from the Netherlands and Denmark.
Grand Finals in Strasbourg
This was the first time that three teams competed in the Grand Finals in Strasbourg before ECtHR. Teams from Aarhus (Denmark), Nis (Serbia) and Utrecht (the Netherlands) were given a fictitious case, designed by Civil Rights Defenders and the Swedish legal experts associated with our organization. The Grand Finals did not include drafting written briefs, but had focused on the oral pleading stage. The oral pleading has taken place at the competition and was performed speaking in English language, unlike the Regional Moot Court Competition and Futura Competition where the students speak their native language with the provided translation. The fact that the students knew that in this stage they had to use a language different to their native language has forced them to improve their preparatory phase. By doing so they had to learn the legal words and phrases used in the very chambers of the ECtHR, which improved their professional capacities. The winner of the Grand Finals in Strasbourg is the team from Aarhus, Denmark. Futura Competition The Fifth Futura Competition, which is a qualifying competition for the first-time entrants, involved five university teams – Bitola (Macedonia), Kragujevac (Serbia), Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Stip (Macedonia) and Zenica (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and was successfully organized in Nis, Serbia in June and July 2017. The procedure and stages of the Futura Competition are similar to the ones used at the Regional Moot Court Competition, they differ only in the number of participating teams – at the Futura Competition five teams competed.
The winner of the Fifth Futura Competition is the team from Zenica (Bosnia and Herzegovina), earning their place in the Twelfth Regional Moot Court Competition, which will take place in Skopje, Macedonia in 2018.