On October 20th, 2007 the Human Dynamics Team is kicking off its 24 month EU financed Project on „Support to the Public Defender’s Office“ in Georgia.
The project will address current issues concerning respect for human rights and the rule of law in Georgia as well as achieving practical outcomes for the Public Defender’s Office by enhancing its capacity to conduct research and monitoring that will inform the polity of the state of human rights and respect for rule of law as envisioned in the ongoing reform of the criminal justice system. Furthemore, the project aims to improve the human rights situation and governance in the country by supporting the implementation of reforms to the justice system and strengthening the capacities of relevant institutions to implement and enforce the reforms within a coherent and consistent policy framework. The specific area of cooperation is:
Support for Institutional, Administrative and Legal Reform.
The major project objectives are:
- Strengthening the monitoring capacities of the PDO on criminal justice reforms and promoting rule of law in Georgia
- Improvement of institutional capacity of the PDO
- Raising public awareness on rule of law and human rights issues.
These objectives, although not necessarily unique in themselves, contain elements that have an originality of approach unique to this project, namely: placing of key experts in the PDO for extended periods; the establishment of an analytical unit within the PDO; education of PDO staff in the Code of Criminal Conduct specifically and criminal justice reforms in general; enhancing the PDO’s capacity for monitoring under OPCAT; wide-ranging public awareness on the rule of law aiming both at improving understanding about human rights among the public at large and informing civil servants and public institutions about the role and duties of the Public Defender Office in respect of human rights violations.