More than 400 lawyers and court advocates have upgraded their professional skills in land relations through the “Raising Land Awareness” training. The trainings were conducted in September – December 2018 under the World Bank and the EU Program “Supporting Transparent Land Governance in Ukraine”, in collaboration with the Coordination Center for Legal Aid Provision at the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine. 18 trainings were held in three pilot oblasts – Lviv, Kyiv and Mykolaiv.
By providing the most up-to-date information on the state and application practices of national land law and the judicial practice of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in securing land rights, the trainings aimed at enhancing the professional capacity of lawyers and court advocates to assist citizens in the sphere of land relations.
Specialized training focused on the following themes:
Each theme included consideration of case studies.
The designed and delivered trainings had separate agendas for:
(1) lawyers of the free legal aid system and other practicing lawyers;
(2) lawyers from local self-government bodies and OTGs, land surveyors, registrars, and notaries; and
(3) court advocates.
The trainers included land law practitioners – court advocates, judges, experts, researchers, and representatives of the Ministry of Justice. In particular, they were Volodymyr Nosik, Associate Member of the Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine, advocate, professor of the Department of Land and Agrarian Law at Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University; Viktor Kobylianskyi, a lawyer, Deputy Chairperson of the Land Law Committee of the all-Ukrainian “Association of Advocates of Ukraine”; Andrii Martyn, Head of Department for Land Management Planning, National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine; Oleksandr Polivodskyi, advocate, partner of Sofiya Law Firm; Oleksandr Panasyk, Deputy Chairperson of the Appellate Court in Vinnytsia Oblast; Olena Martyniuk, Deputy Director of the Department for Private Law, Ministry of Justice of Ukraine; Anna Fedun, expert in land and agrarian law; Kateryna Reznikova, expert in developing, maintaining and data-filling of land and cadastral information systems; Roman Marusenko, Associate Professor of the Department of Land and Agrarian Law at Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University; and Volodymyr Nikitin, Deputy Head of the Department of State Registration and Notary of the Ministry of Justice.
The high professional level of the conducted training “Land Rights Protection. Judicial protection and pre-trial settlement of issues encountered by landowners and land users” is testified by accreditation at the National Bar Association of Ukraine as a professional upgrade tool for lawyers. It was attended by over 125 court advocates.