August 2015
From January to July, a total of 592 defense attorneys from Tbilisi and seven of Georgia’s regions took part in the ABA Rule of Law Initiative’s (ABA ROLI’s) criminal justice-focused continuing legal education (CLE) trainings. The 45 video-supported CLE workshops were led by ABA ROLI-trained instructors from five legal aid service centers.
ABA ROLI has been working with the Georgian Bar Association to provide quality CLE to the country’s attorneys. This year’s CLE sessions—which took place in Tbilisi, Batumi, Kutaisi, Gori, Zugdidi, Rustavi, Mtskhete and Telavi—made ABA ROLI’s CLE trainings available even to lawyers based in remote areas, who—due to poor or lacking Internet access—could not benefit from existing online training opportunities.
The CLE sessions covered a range of criminal justice topics, including criminalistics, scientific approaches to investigating a crime, crime-scene inspection, jury selection and instruction, ballistics and DNA evidence, criminal procedure law and case analysis.
“ABA ROLI’s program in Georgia aims to solidify the progress made in fostering a more effective criminal justice sector by promoting the professionalism and preparedness of the defense bar to conduct criminal cases under the 2010 Criminal Procedure Code, which ushered in a new adversarial system of justice,” said David Rubino, ABA ROLI’s regional director for Georgia and Tajikistan. While they touch upon various aspects of criminal justice, ABA ROLI’s trainings emphasize the jury trial system—a relatively new addition to Georgia’s criminal justice regime. “ABA ROLI complements substantive trainings of lawyers in targeted areas of the law with trainings aimed at enriching public discourse around the jury system,” said Rubino.
ABA ROLI’s program to support criminal law reform in Georgia is supported by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.
To learn more about our work in Georgia, contact the ABA Rule of Law Initiative at [email protected].