Court staff from Akhaltsikhe Regional Court, including judges, took part in a USAID Rule of Law Program seminar on People-Centered Justice (PCJ) and Court-Community Engagement.

The Community Engagement Advisor at the USAID Rule of Law Program, Dr. Tim Bunjevac, and the Community Engagement Coordinator, Mariam Gobronidze, delivered a session on court-community engagement practices from around the world and introduced the concepts and theory of PCJ.

Dr. Bunjevac spoke about the concept of PCJ, including the relevant theory and design approaches, and explored strategies for increasing courts’ engagement with different court communities. Gobronidze showcased the Program’s PCJ-related activities in other Georgian courts.

The session included an exploration of the differences between traditional and problem-solving courts; the five levers of Human-Centered Design in the courts; possible areas for expanding court-community engagement outside the courts; examples of court-community surveys; the roles and functions of court-community advisory boards; and opportunities for involving a range of external stakeholders to support court-community engagement.

Dr. Bunjevac and Gobronidze then ran a workshop assisting the court in identifying the Akhaltsikhe community's specific legal needs through group exercises. Afterward, an interactive discussion focused on identifying the elements of a successful Court-Community Engagement Plan. The session concluded with a practical group exercise requiring the court’s judges and staff to develop their own court-community engagement plan designed to address the identified community needs and increase the court’s engagement with the local community. The plan includes the court’s mission statement, the desired outcomes, and activities to address the identified community needs, as well as the basic resources and stakeholder support that will be needed to implement the proposed activities. The participants proposed a series of community engagement activities such as roundtable discussions with other stakeholders, open court days, moot courts, partnerships with educational institutions, preparing legal awareness-raising activities, etc. which the court will consider implementing in the next 24 months.

The participants invited the Program’s team to visit the court in April 2023 to finalize the Court-Community Engagement Plan based on the draft plan that was prepared in the workshop. The participants thanked the Program for its support and reaffirmed the court’s commitment to People-Centered Justice. The judges Marika Chitashvili and Giorgi Lobzhanidze emphasized the importance of court-community engagement in increasing society’s trust towards the judiciary and its legitimacy.

“All the issues discussed during the seminar were very important for the effective functioning of the court. It was very interesting to hear the good practices from around the world, especially Australian examples. With the support from the USAID Rule of Law Program our court will be even more people-centered in the future and try to raise legal awareness among its community.” – Nino Chigoga, the Court Manager of Akhaltsikhe Regional Court (ARC).

The USAID Rule of Law Program will continue to support ARC to enhance its outreach activities and assist it to develop a comprehensive court-community engagement plan with the active involvement of ARC judges and court staff.