BIRN Kosovo Held Training Sessions with Faculty of Law Students on Using Justice System Database

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On March 3 and 5, 2022, BIRN Kosovo held training sessions on using judicial data with Faculty of Law students from the University of Pristina and the University of Prizren. The sessions were part of the “Data 4 Fighting Harmful Narratives in the Judiciary” project funded by the Millenium Foundation Kosovo (MFK) and the Millenium Challenge Corporation (MCC).

In close cooperation with the Kosovo Judicial Council and the Kosovo Prosecutorial Council, MFK has created a database for information linked to the judicial system. The database will serve as a tool for informing research and analysis in the field of justice for all interested groups, including judicial institutions, experts, students and civil society members.

The main goal of the activity is to develop the capacities of law students from Kosovo’s universities to use judicial data as part of their studies.

In total, 77 students took part in the training sessions, which were led by Labinot Leposhtica, the monitoring coordinator at BIRN Kosovo’s Legal Office.

Following the training, students from both universities will have the opportunity to be part of a scholarship for writing a seminar paper based on the judicial data. In their seminar papers, students will be encouraged to focus on cases of criminal law, civil law, administrative procedures and economic law.

Under the guidance and mentorship of the BIRN editorial team, the selected papers will be turned into journalistic articles, which will be published in the “Life in Kosovo” newspaper. Two students will each be awarded €200 for their work.

The overall goal of this project is to fight fake news and misinformation by monitoring the media, providing hands-on training for journalists and improving public awareness of the judicial system by establishing a platform that utilises public data and fact-checking resources.