On March 18th and 19th, 2015, representatives of Association BRTMI conducted a working visit in Blagoevgrad related to the implementation of the project "New European standards for the implementation of alternatives to prison", funded by the Small Grant Scheme of Programme BG 15 of the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2009-2014.

 

A working meeting was conducted with our project partner - Institute for Conflict Resolution, represented by Prof. Dr. Dobrinka Chankov. The aim of the meeting was to specify the partner commitments and to plan the deadlines for implementation of the activities, envisaged in the project. 

Prof. Dr. Chankova initiated a meeting with the experts from the expert team, during which we discussed their work assignments. The meeting was very useful because we managed to discuss not only the project commitments but also our future common actions for promoting mediation and other alternative methods for disputing resolutions, as well as the implementation of restorative justice in our country.

 

The manager of Association BRTMI - Mr. Ivaylo Ivanov visited Blagoevgrad District Prosecutor’s Office, where he met with Mr. George Stoilov- District Prosecutor, and the Blagoevgrad District Court, where he met Judge Ekaterina Nikolova - Court Chairman. The meetings aimed at presenting the project and attracting the attention of the Court and the Prosecution to the opportunities for upgrading the capacity of judges and prosecutors to implement the new European standards for alternatives to prison.

 

On March 19th, 2015, an informational meeting was held in the Law Faculty of South-West University “Neofit Rilski", organized with the kind assistance of Prof. Dr. Dobrinka Chankova.  The meeting was attended by partner representatives, some of the experts and stakeholder representatives: the Chairperson of the Blagoevgrad District Court - Ms. Ekaterina Nikolova, the Deputy Chairman of the Court - Mr. Vladimir Penzov, the Razlog District Prosecutor - Ms. Ruzhena Kondeva, prosecutors from Blagoevgrad and Kyustendil District and Regional Prosecutor’s Offices, the Head of the Probation Service in Blagoevgrad - Mr. Asiyski. All the participants in the meeting shared their ideas and proposals for the future training of magistrates and probation officers which objective is to increase and upgrade their knowledge for applying probation and pre-trial reports as well as the opportunities and benefits of implementation of mediation and restorative justice in criminal cases.