Role of legal professionals in ensuring access to justice for national minorities focus of regional roundtable discussion held in Chisinau

10 October 2018

Lajos Karakas, Acting Deputy Head of OSCE Mission to Moldova; Henrik Villadsen, Director of the office of the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM); Victoria Iftodi, Minister of Justice of Moldova; Diana Scobioala, Director of the National Institute of Justice of Moldova; Laurenţiu Hadîrcǎ, Senior Legal Adviser at HCNM; speak at the Regional launch of the Graz Recommendations on Access to Justice and National Minorities, 9 October 2018, Chisinau, Moldova. (OSCE/Igor Schimbator) (OSCE) Photo details

The role of legal professionals in ensuring the adequate protection of national minorities’ rights, by way of fair and effective investigation and adjudication, especially in cases related to hate crime, was the focus of a two-day regional roundtable held in Chisinau, which concluded on 10 October 2018.

Organized by the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) and the Moldovan National Institute of Justice, the event brought together around 70 high-level representatives of the judicial authorities of Moldova as well as law practitioners and academia from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania and Ukraine. The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) contributed to the event with a session focused on hate crime.

The Director of the office of the HCNM, Henrik Villadsen, presented the High Commissioner’s Graz Recommendations on Access to Justice and National Minorities, the latest thematic recommendation by the HCNM, which was launched in November 2017.

“The Graz Recommendations are a practical tool for justice sector professionals to improve access to justice for persons belonging to national minorities”, said Villadsen. He reminded participants that “previously, the HCNM assisted the Moldovan Bureau of Inter-ethnic Relations and the Georgian State Ministry for Reconciliation in drafting national Integration Strategies based on the HCNM’s 2012 Ljubljana Guidelines on Integration of Diverse Societies.”

He offered support in matters pertaining to access to justice, where the HCNM could assist the countries’ relevant authorities in drafting legal and regulatory frameworks based on the Graz Recommendations.

The participants shared their experiences of how the provisions of the Graz Recommendations are being applied in practice in their respective countries, focusing particularly on the representation of national minorities in the composition of courts, tribunals, prosecution offices and law-enforcement bodies as well as access to courts, witness protection schemes, victim-support services, and targeted legal assistance programmes in situations and cases involving national minorities.

In his speech Lajos Karakas, Deputy Head of the OSCE Mission to Moldova, said: “Respect for the rights of persons belonging to national minorities is an important cornerstone for social cohesion, justice, stability and democracy. International conferences like this one allow legal professionals to learn best practices and apply them to support their governments’ efforts to build inclusive societies.”