On 22 May 2018, the Academy of Justice within the Continuous Training Program conducted training on: “Law on forest, nature protection and environmental protection”.
This training aimed to advance the knowledge of judges on the proper implementation of the legal provisions on forest, nature protection, with a special emphasis on protection of national parks and environment.
During the training particular attention was paid to the interpretation of environmental law sources in Kosovo as a separate branch of the legal system and the constitutional and legal guarantees of environmental law, access to environmental information, public participation in decision-making and environmental justice. Participants were also familiar with the level of implementation of the Aarhus Convention in Kosovo, an instrument that obliges Member States to provide access to environmental information to enable their participation in decision-making in environmental issues and to provide access to justice for the purpose of legal protection of these rights and general rights in the field of environment.
The training concludes that given the fact that we are witnessing the degradation of the environment, the ruthless damage of the forests, the national parks and nature in general, which all this is necessarily reflects in human health and in the quality of life in general, it is necessary that cases from this area to be handled with priority by the Kosovo courts.
In addition, the findings and recommendations from the EU reports on Kosovo, recently, highlighted that although Kosovo is at an early stage of preparation in this area, which progress has been noted, still considerable efforts to enforce legislation in all areas of environmental and climate change are needed.
Beneficiaries of this training were judges of minor offence division in basic courts, general departments – criminal divisions and prosecutors of basic instances.
22-05-2018