ACTIONES

Overview

ACTIONES is a EU funded project under the coordination of the EUI Centre for Judicial Cooperation, and involving 17 partners: 7 academic institutions, a European-wide association of judges, and 9 national institutions entrusted with the task to train judges and lawyers. The Project run from 1 November 2015 until 31 October 2017. 

ACTIONES is based on the premise that a high and coherent standard of fundamental rights protection within the EU requires way more than simple knowledge on the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. This must be complemented by deep social and political sensitivity, awareness and swiftness in adopting procedural solutions offered by various legal orders, openness to their products, and readiness to engage in exchanges of views. These qualities must be nurtured with the awareness of time and resource limitations judges and lawyers face in their everyday work. The Project aims at providing answers to all the above needs through a set of transnational and local training events, which will be based on an easy-to-use toolkit through which legal practitioners will become familiar with the techniques of vertical and horizontal interaction between European and national courts, ensuring the effective implementation of the European Charter of fundamental rights and adequate remedies to its violations.

ACTIONES training methodology departs from the traditional vertical, top-down approach, rather endorsing a bottom-up approach, where academics and practitioners engage in direct exchanges of views, in light of their real needs and difficulties as highlighted by the practice. The approach is also holistic, in the sense that it aims at deepening the understanding by legal practitioners of all set of challenges underlying the application of the Charter, which are primarily legal in nature but, particularly in certain fields, also social, economic and political. 

All the output of the Project are collected and freely available in the ACTIONES Platform.

Transnational and local training

The Transnational training workshops are organised by the EUI (notably, by the Centre for Judicial Cooperation, in collaboration with the Global Governance Programme and the Migration and Policy Centre), by the University of Uppsala, and by the University of Parma.

The Training workshops are devoted to different areas/topics: 

  • On May 2-3, 2016, the EUI hosts the Transnational Training Workshop focused on Consumer Protection – Programme.
  • On June 27-28 2016, the EUI hosts the Transnational Training Workshop focused on Migration and Asylum law – Programme. 
  • In November 7-8, 2016, the EUI hosts the Transnational Training Workshop focused on Non-discrimination – Programme.
  • In December 13-14, 2016, the University of Uppsala hosts the Transnational Training Workshop focused on Criminal law – Programme.
  • In January 30-31 2017, the University of Parma hosts the Transnational Training Workshop focused on Effective Judicial Protection – Programme.

Each Workshop runs for 2 days, and involves a target group of at least 30 national judges (without any fee), coming from all the Member States of the partners to the consortium. 

The training curriculum consists of the first three cross-sectorial modules of the Handbook, each time in combination with one of the thematic modules, plus the additional tools (questionnaires, supports to group-exercises) to stimulate active engagement of the legal practitioners. 

The ACTIONES training methodology departs from the traditional vertical, top-down approach, rather endorsing a bottom-up approach, where academics and practitioners engage in direct exchanges of views, in light of their real needs and difficulties as highlighted by the practice. The approach is also holistic, in the sense that it aims at deepening the understanding by legal practitioners of all set of challenges underlying the application of the Charter, which are primarily legal in nature but, particularly in certain fields, also social, economic and political. 

Selection of participants to the workshops

The selection of participants are made in accordance to common rules agreed by the Steering Committee during the Kick-off meeting.

The Project’s partners ensure that, in each training event, the target group is highly representative from the point of view of the age/gender/nationality/cultural and legal background of the participants. Another criteria that is taken into particular account is the pertinence of topics addressed for the daily activity of participants. Whenever the topic allows this, the partners will seek equal participation of judges belonging to civil, administrative and criminal jurisdictions. 

Each national training institution partners to the project (i.e. Judicial Academy (Croatia), Superior School for Magistracy (Italy), National Institute for Magistracy (Romania), Judicial Training Centre (Slovenia), Judicial School (Spain)) selects two (2) national judges per event among the applications received, thus providing ten (10) judges in total for the five transnational workshops. 

In addition to participation of judges from the seven national training institutions partner to the project, EUI invites other fourteen (14) judges per event from any of the Member States of the European Union, with the exception of those already representing the seven partner organisations.