Enhancing the capacity of academia, civil society, and courts in Georgia has been one of the USAID Rule of Law Program’s priorities.

On June 15, 2023, the Program held a lecture on People-Centered Justice (PCJ) and Court-Community Engagement, which was attended by forty students and academic staff from Tbilisi State University.

Dr. Tim Bunjevac, the Community Engagement Advisor at the USAID Rule of Law Program, led the session, presenting court-community engagement practices from around the world and introducing the concepts and theory of PCJ.

The participants learned about successful examples of court outreach activities designed to increase public trust in the courts.

During the lecture, Dr. Bunjevac explained the concept of PCJ, including relevant theory and design approaches, and discussed strategies for increasing courts' engagement with different court communities.

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.

All participants expressed their interest in attending PCJ-related activities organized by the Rule of Law Program in the future.

Following the seminar, the Program representatives met with TSU Law Faculty Deputy Dean Giorgi Dgebuadze and staff member Marika Turava to discuss future cooperation between the Program and TSU focusing on PCJ.