Justice: Support for strengthening judicial and legal systems

For a State, sustainable development is not possible without good governance or the capacity to ensure the safety of its citizens. To achieve this, it is necessary to have a high-quality and accessible justice system compliant with the standards of the rule of law.

As the French public agency for international technical cooperation, Expertise France works on these issues in a number of projects.

Since the integration of JCI, Expertise France has been directly responsible for the implementation of these activities. Its partnerships with the Ministry of Justice, the National School for the Judiciary (ENM), the National School of Administration (ENAP), the National Council of Bars (CNB), the National Chamber of Judicial Officers (CNCJ), and the Superior Council of Notaries (CSN) facilitate its access to the specific expertise of the judicial and legal world, in particular the expertise of the Ministry of Justice, law schools, and legal professions (lawyers, notaries, court enforcement officers). It is today able to further increase its presence in this crucial sector for development.

The rule of law and good governance are essential conditions for European Union membership. Expertise France assists candidate countries for European Union membership with their administrative reforms and their efforts to develop good governance, especially in the justice sector. This is the case in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the agency has been contributing to strengthening the integrity of rule-of-law institutions since December 2022. Joining the EU also requires working towards its standards and procedures, across a diverse range of sectors, in order to integrate the acquis communautaire. Expertise France helps partner countries address this challenge, in particular for Chapters 23 and 24.

In Moldova, Expertise France has implemented a project to support the justice system with the Lithuanian public agency CPMA. It includes activities to enhance fair trial rights by supporting the Moldovan Bar Association, six universities, and the National Council for State Guaranteed Legal Aid. Some of the project’s outputs have already been integrated into the national system, such as recommendations on the admission process to the Moldovan Bar Association and training for trainee lawyers.

Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine has shown how important it is to build a united European area. Technical cooperation plays an essential role in this respect: it helps align European neighbourhood countries with European standards, in particular in the context of the EU accession process. Expertise France has refocused the Pravo-Justice II project which it had been implementing in Ukraine since 2021. The objective is to address the urgent need of justice officials in the country and displaced persons, and document alleged war crimes.

The Programme to Support Justice Reform, the result of a partnership between the European Union and the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, reached completion in November.

This project has, for example, helped professionalise the initial training for magistrates and court staff provided by the National School of Administration, Journalism and Magistracy (ENAJM), design a continuous training policy, conducted by the Human Resources Department (HRD) of the Ministry of Justice, design and conduct thematic and specialised training modules, and develop human resources management tools.

In the area of corrections, the activities have contributed to supporting the development of restructuring documents and tools by the General Delegation for Prison Administration and Reintegration (DGAPR), created with support from the project in August 2022. They have also helped design and conduct thematic and specialised training modules for staff working in prisons.

The ministry has also received substantial support through the complete rehabilitation of the women’s prison and the partial rehabilitation of Dar Naim Prison in Nouakchott, and the provision of priority equipment (ambulance, medical and biomedical equipment, various items of equipment for infirmaries, kitchens and dormitories) to improve the humanisation of conditions of detention.

Every year, environmental crime causes losses of more than €200 billion and increases by more than 5%, accentuating the risk of harming people and biodiversity. In this respect, several warning signs make it essential to rethink an appropriate environmental justice system: an environmental emergency, many victims, and trafficking between opacity and impunity.

Consequently, the crosscutting nature of the field of action, along with the multidisciplinarity of the actors that have a role to play in ensuring the overall protection of the environment, justifies more than ever the essential need to step up cooperation between these various stakeholders.

Expertise France assists its partners with the development and implementation of an effective protection of the environment based on the three-pronged approach: “Prevent, sanction, repair”.

Vulnerabilities within national frameworks to combat money laundering and terrorist financing pose potential threats to financial systems. They also provide a means for terrorist groups and organised crime groups to finance their activities. Expertise France is implementing the European Union’s Global Facility on Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT), a demand-driven programme that aims to cut off access to funding for individual terrorists and terrorist organisations, and introduce reinforced measures to fight against organised crime.