Rule of law professionals discuss the monitoring of administrative justice at annual OSCE/ODIHR trial-monitoring meeting
Monitoring administrative justice was the focus of this year’s annual trial-monitoring meeting organized by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), in co-operation with the Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA), in Warsaw between 29 June and 1 July 2015.
The participants of the meeting, which brought together more than 20 legal professionals from national NGOs and OSCE field operations as well as administrative justice experts, discussed theoretical and practical issues, such as the concepts and principles around administrative justice and applying the right to a fair trial in administrative cases.
“Since their inception in 2002, the annual trial-monitoring meetings have become an important and valuable platform for OSCE staff and civil society representatives to share their experiences in trial monitoring, as a tool for assessing courts’ compliance with the right to a fair trial,” said Tina Gewis, Chief of ODIHR’s Rule of Law Unit.
Sara Isman, Project Leader for Rule of Law at FBA, a Swedish agency for peace, security and development, said: “Proper judicial review of decisions of administrative bodies is important because they affect almost every aspect of people’s lives, including their health, education, income, business and professional activities, their family relationships, their right to express their opinions, to travel freely, and even their personal liberties.”
The event also provided participants with an opportunity to share experiences and lessons learned from their monitoring projects, discuss methodological challenges, and improve existing monitoring tools. The question of equal access to administrative justice for vulnerable individuals and how to address the rights of such individuals in monitoring methodologies was particularly emphasized at the meeting.
Sebiha Mexhuani, National Co-ordinator in the Law and Justice Section of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, said: “This annual meeting dedicated to administrative justice was a good occasion to hear from other trial monitors and human rights practitioners about their specific experiences across the OSCE region.”
This year’s meeting was a follow-up to the publication of 2013 joint ODIHR/FBA Handbook on Monitoring Administrative Justice.