Rule of Law and Independence of Administrative Justice

The conference will take place over two days:

• The first day will be dedicated to discussions on the rule of law and judicial reform developments, including judicial independence and its effective role in the system of checks and balances. The discussions on the first day will touch on challenges and also explore avenues to ameliorate the situation in rule-of-law areas, seeking common-good practices, potential alliances, and lessons learned in building resilience.
• The second day of the event will be dedicated to the role of administrative justice in ensuring protection of civil and political rights of the citizens in the Eastern Partnership countries as a safeguard against rule of law backsliding, including specific challenges that the administrative judges face while adjudicating in politically sensitive cases. The second day will be conceptualised as a working-level discussion, incorporating the presentation of baseline studies on the independence of administrative justice in the selected Eastern Partnership countries, followed by a discussion of the concept of the tool on judicial independence in administrative justice, and planning initial steps in its development.

Participants

The event will be attended by up to 30 administrative court judges, representatives of relevant judicial councils and self-governing bodies, specialized civil society organizations and leading legal experts on administrative justice, as well as 20 participants of similar profile from the OSCE participating states outside of EU’s Eastern Partnership region to take part in the first day of the event, contributing to the discussions and sharing relevant good practices.