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

The Community Engagement Advisor at the USAID Rule of Law Program, Dr. Tim Bunjevac, and the Community Engagement Manager, Oliko Shermadini, delivered a session on court-community engagement practices from around the world and introduced the concepts and theory of PCJ. The participants learned about successful examples of court outreach activities designed to increase public trust toward the courts.

The seminar was exciting and challenging at both the intellectual and practical levels. 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. It 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.

Ms. Shermadini showcased recent PCJ initiatives that had been introduced in Georgian courts with the assistance of the Rule of Law Program and invited the participants to consider adopting similar strategies for increasing court-community engagement in the Khashuri Regional Court.

The session concluded with an interactive discussion that focused on identifying the elements of a successful Court Engagement Strategy and Action Plan. The participants expressed a desire to attend an interactive workshop in the near future where the Program’s experts would assist the court develop its own Court Engagement Strategy and Action Plan by identifying strategies and practical initiatives to increase the court’s engagement with the local community.