D4J holds its first Bi-weekly meeting with Partners

Pristina, January 25, 2017 - Today the Demand for Justice Program (D4J) hosted the first official bi-weekly meeting with its four partner CSOs Kosovo Law Institute (KLI), Kosovo Democratic Institute (KDI), Levizja FOL, and Youth Initiative for Human Rights Kosovo (YIHR KS). The meeting was opened by John Furnari CoP of the D4J Program who once again emphasized the importance of D4J partners working together and supporting one another in achieving their project objectives fostering transparency, accountability and integrity of the Judiciary in Kosovo.

The D4J team and its partners also discussed the establishment of communication tools i.e. the joint communication strategy, the new D4J logo and the program branding guidelines as well as the communication channels such as D4J’s official Webpage and Facebook page. Given the fact that communication is a fundamental part of the D4J program, these elements will be crucial for the program and its partners to reach their target audiences to accomplish one of its main objectives: mobilizing citizens to “Demand Justice”.

Following a discussion of D4J communication protocols, brief project updates from each D4J grantee included the following developments. First, KLI announced plans to lead a court monitoring training for its new staff on 27 January so that KLI monitoring may commence immediately. In a demonstration of CSO solidarity, KLI opened this training up to all other D4J partners and students of the D4J Legal Clinic to attend. A total of 12 young lawyers or law student are expected to take part.

Meanwhile, KDI reported that they are on the right path to identifying justice sector focus group members to assess and improve the quality of the “Judicial Integrity Initiative” survey expected to launch in February – with the goal of exposing and addressing corruption mechanisms or barriers to integrity. Levizja FOL – D4J’s transparency hawk - has commenced building the “E-Justice” platform where judgments, decisions, hearing schedules/cancellations will be published. Furthermore, Levizja FOL continued research and drafting of a policy brief focused on Kosovo’s legal obligations court decisions.

Finally, YIHR-KS announced that it has identified and hired its team for the development and roll out of D4J’s public education and outreach curricula for high school students in the regions of Pristina, Peja and Prizren. D4J’s final grantees – CBM and NGO Aktiv – will be rolling out similar program in Mitrovica.

These two outreach activities will consist of lectures, debates, youth camps etc. and ar aimed at triggering youth activism in Kosovo.

The Demand for Justice Program is a five-year initiative funded by the U.S. Department of State/INL and implemented by the National Center for State Courts to support the development of robust, evidence-driven demand for justice in Kosovo. Through D4J, NCSC is mobilizing CSO partners to act as agents of change to foster accountability, transparency, and integrity in the justice sector.