Since promoting fundamental rights and human rights standards is very important in Albania, and also considering the establishment of the rule of law and the recent cases brought at the ECHR (as the ultimate court to rule upon the human rights cases) from Albanian citizens, the European Centre and Civil Rights Defenders in Albania have worked on bringing successfully the “Moot Court ECHR Albania”.
The competition involves Law Faculties across the country, public and non-public ones, which will be represented by students of the Bachelor’s and Master’s level.
The rules of procedure applied on this Moot Court are taken from the procedures that are applicable by the European Court of Human Rights. The competition is projected in three phases, where one consists on written statements and the two other phases on oral deliberations.
Each competing group, representing a university, has to prepare arguments of the “Claimant” and the “Respondent” based on a fictive case concerning on human rights violations.
Initially all universities should submit written statements where only six of them will be selected. The selection is done based on very strict rules. Following, the groups wil face each other on the oral deliberations where each has to represent either the Representative of the Claimant or the Representative of the State (the Respondent). The party to be represented is randomly chosen by the group one night before the Semi-Final.
The winning team of the “Moot Court ECHR Albania″ will be entitled to represent Albania at the regional Moot Court Competition organized by Civil Rights Defenders since 2006.
In addition, the participants (the students) have the chance to exercise their knowledge related to human rights, learn more about this set of rights, especially those guaranteed by the European Convention of Human rights and more importantly and get to know with the functioning of the European Court of Human Rights.