About 20 journalists and civic activists from Moldova attended a new training organized by the Center for Investigative Journalism on Friday and Saturday, September 29-30. The training focused on “How to deal with Justice issues: notions, databases, reforms and case studies".

In the first workshop, the participants learned from Mariana Kalughin, an expert at the Center for Corruption Prevention and Analysis, general notions of judicial integrity, standards of judicial integrity, and anti-corruption tools in the judiciary.

Judge Andreea Chis, a member of the Superior Council of Magistracy in Romania, spoke about reforms in justice and the need to have an integrated system in the light of Romania's experience. The magistrate referred, among others, to the communication of the judiciary with the society and building trust in Justice.

Also, lawyer Vitalie Nagacevschi, president of the Association "Lawyers for Human Rights", explained to journalists and civic activists the impact of ECHR’s decisions on justice in Moldova. The defender presented several decisions taken by the Court of Justice in Strasbourg, many of them referred to the judiciary in Moldova, and talked about how these decisions influenced Moldovan jurisprudence.

On the second day of the training, the participants in the sessions learned from Cornelia Cozonac, the president of the Center for Investigative Journalism how to correctly formulate information requests to obtain more data and learned what the authorities invoke when they reject to provide information of public interest. Journalist Natalia Porubin presented useful resources for reporters and activists for documenting acquisitions in the judiciary while Anastasia Nani and Victoria Dodon showed how to identify and document issues with the help of justice databases. Also, they gave some examples of investigations which were published on the Anticoruptie.md portal.

The training was organized within the framework of the project "Mobilizing Civil Society to Support Integrity in the Justice Sector in Moldova", carried out by the Center for Investigative Journalism and Freedom House, with the financial support of the US State Department.

The team of the Center of Investigative Journalism has already organized two training sessions in March and May under the same project. A similar event will take place by the end of this year.