VR-DigiJUST

In the VR-DigiJUST project the IPoS, together with the partners, will develop and establish relevant elements for the successful management and coordination of the project, such as scientific and evaluation committees, management and quality control methodologies, legal and ethical management protocols as well as gender-based protocols for the impact assessment. The consortium will establish a regional practitioner network including judicial trainers, VR training designers, and regional judicial schools for judges, prosecutors, lawyers, court experts from across the EU. The Network will be engaged in the project research, piloting and training activities. The partners will design a multidimensional training and research methodology through Community of Practices (CoPs) for interdisciplinary training within the judicial sector using blended VR and online training. Three regional focus groups will engage judicial trainers, lawyers, judges, prosecutors and forensic experts to facilitate open dialogue on experiences in applying European legal instruments from an anagogic perspective. The outcome of the empirical research will be presented in several e-Capsule Reports and used as training material. The partners will design the ‘Network of Regional Judicial Training Centres’. Three technical platforms will be designed and implemented for the network. The consortium will design VR-DigiJust training contents, curricula and certificates. Three Train-the-Trainer courses will be implemented for trainers and regional judiciary schools and justice training centers at local level. A training recruitment campaign will exploit the partners’ existing network, maximizing the dissemination channels. A Cascade Peer Trainingaims at delivering training for 300 Judges, prosecutors, lawyers and court experts, in the partner countries, inviting experts from all EU Member States. The consrtium will draft and publish Journal Articles. A targeted dissemination focuses on communicating transferable results of practical relevance to relevant actors in the justice system.

• Objective 1: VR-DigiJust contributes to the effective and coherent application of specific EU cooperation instruments at regional level through a decentralized cross-border and cross-professional training strategy in the framework of the Council Conclusions 6926/21 . At the center of the VR-DigiJust the impact of the new technologies firstly on the work of regional prosecutor offices and their staff, judges, lawyers and bailiffs, when they are confronted with large cascade investigations, such as e.g. ‘Enchrochat’2:
• Objective 2: VR-DigiJust focuses on a better and more coherent use of the following EU cooperation tools considered as a priority in the call: Council Regulation (EU) 2018/1805;Council Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA (EAW); Directive 2014/41/EU (EIO); Council Regulation (EU) 2017/1939(EPPO); Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR); Directive (EU) 2016/680 (Police Directive), as well as all FD on alternative measures to prison (947/909/829) in the framework of the case law of the European Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
• Objective 3: The integration of different EU judicial tools within complex transnational investigations based on e-evidence and digital data gathering pose several legal and doctrinal questions, with a view to the developing jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for what concerns the applicable concept of ‘judicial authority’ , ‘fishing expeditions’ , and data protection and privacy in the digital era
• Objective 4: VR-DigiJust builds capacity among the target groups identified in the Council Conclusions 6926/21 “such as lawyers, bailiffs, court staff” (pg.7), with a regional focus, including regional prosecutor offices, local tribunals of preliminary, first and second instance towards a harmonised understanding of which mutual recognition instruments should be used, by which judiciary body (ordinary, district prosecutors, judges, courts), when (level of the proceeding, judges of preliminary investigation, probatory test or different trial stages) and under which jurisdiction (depending from the type of crime, age of the suspects, countries involved, applicable convention and type of activity) during complex transnational judiciary activities involving the collection and exchange of digital data and evidences for poly-crime. VR-DigiJust recognizes the importance of a regional and decentralized approach as a means to have an EU impact through capacity building.
• Objective 5: Responding especially to the Council Conclusions “Boosting Training of Judicial Professionals”, VR-DigiJust strives to reduce disparity in justice professional training across MSs through combined design and implementation; invest in the digitalisation of training through the B-learning HERMES training platform combined with advanced Virtual Reality training; and carefully evaluating the effects of training and different training tools through the Kirkpatrick approach.

• lawyers,
• bailiffs,
• court staff,
• regional prosecutor offices,
• local tribunals of preliminary, first and second instance;

The overall long-term goal of VR-DigiJust is to contribute to the effective and coherent application of specific EU cooperation tools at regional level. This will be achieved through intermediate steps that will have effects in the short and medium term.

Specifically, these will be:

• Result/Impact/Outcome 1: Definition of a training and research methodology for interdisciplinary training within the judicial sector,
  using blended VR and online (synchronic and a-synchronic technologies) methods, which will be
  available for the development of future trainings.
• Result/Impact/Outcome 2: Better data available on the use of EU judicial tools within a single investigation with interregional links
  (e-Capsule Reports).
• Result/Impact/Outcome 3: Better data available on the relationship between judicial systems, technologies, and European legal
  instruments (European Status Report).
• Result/Impact/Outcome 4: Definition of best practice models on the exploitation of opportunities generated by judicial instruments,
  technologies, and their interplay (Regional DigiJust Vision Report).
• Result/Impact/Outcome 5: Development of a formalised structure (Network of Regional Judicial Training Centres’) which will design, test and validate different training infrastructures, e-Training Capsules and Pilot courses to support regional prosecutor offices and courts in understanding which mutual recognition instruments should be used, by which judiciary body, when, and in which jurisdiction during complex transnational judiciary activities involving the collection and sharing of digital data and evidence for transnational polycrime.
• Result/Impact/Outcome 6: Development of a more efficient technological system in place to support the work of the abovementioned
  network of training centres.
• Result/Impact/Outcome 7: Availability of sustainable and innovative training programmes, with tailored curricula, that could be
  delivered in future occasions.
• Result/Impact/Outcome 8: European practitioners trained on the use of EU cooperation tools and relevant technologies for
  investigations with interregional links.
• Result/Impact/Outcome 9: Reduced gender disparity in judicial bodies and better access to training for women, which will be
  achieved through the research, training and dissemination activities of the project, including,
  disaggregated data collection, active recruitment of females for training and the targeting of female
  practitioner associations and events through dissemination. The target group of the project is composed
  by regional prosecutor offices and their staff, local tribunals of preliminary, first and second instance and
  lawyers.

• Fondazione Agenfor international (Italy)
• Hochschule fur Öffentliche Verwaltung – HfÖV (Germany)
• Chambre nationale des comissaires de justice (France);
• European public law organization (Greece)
• Institut european de l’expertise et de l’expert (France)
• Chambre nationale des huissiers de justice (Belgium)
• Corte di appello di venezia (Italy)
• Procura della republica preso il tribunale di firenze (Italy)
• Procura della repubblica presso il tribunale di rimini (Italy)

• CIRD e.V.