Trainings

„NJC makes a proposal on the central education plan and comments on the rules of the
judges’ education system and the performance of training obligations.”

The Hungarian Academy of Judiciary Sciences, which is operated as an organisational unit of NJC, is responsible for the training of judges and judiciary employees. The Hungarian Academy of Judiciary Sciences, formerly Hungarian Academy for the Training of Judges, was established in 2006. The Hungarian Academy of Judiciary Sciences prepares a central education plan on central trainings held centrally, regionally and locally, to which NJC can submit proposals. This proposal is related to not only training proposals for action; NJC may submit proposals also on the directions and priorities of training. [Point a) of paragraph (4) of Article 103 of Act CLXI of 2011]

The President of NJO shall define the training system of judges and the rules of the performance of training obligations. However, there were related efforts, this has not been realised in the past six years. NJO comments on every issued regulation and recommendation but the act lists separately the task to comment on the training system and the rules of training obligations. [Point b) of paragraph (4) of Article 103 of the Act CLXI of 2011]

The training system of judges is part of the judge career, it is related to their career development and it has a direct effect on the quality of judicial work. Especially because of this reason it is highly important that the training system is transparent and based on objective professional grounds. It should not be allowed to define the topics of the trainings and appoint lecturers and participants based on governance or other non-professional reasons, as it sadly happened several times in the recent past. Further to the transfer of material knowledge necessary for judiciary work such as trainings following the changes of law, the trainings should primarily concentrate on judicial competencies and should strengthen the independence and impartiality of the judges and fair procedure in general. Besides that, professional trainings have an important role in the fact that judges working in different areas of the country can share their experience with each other and within the frameworks of the training a discussion can start between the judges of lower and higher instance. The Hungarian Academy of Judiciary Sciences, similarly to other foreign educational institutions and international training centres, should create a trainer data base in which it could be tracked in a transparent way who is asked to be a trainer based on experience, lecturer competencies and the feedback of the participants.