This first PAJM II steering committee meeting was attended by some twenty different partners - schools and professional bodies, international organisations and operators - along with the representatives of the Malian institutions. Elie Renard, Deputy Director of the ENM with responsibility for in-service training, specialist professional training and the International Department, reviews the support actions carried out by the ENM during the launch phase.

Across-the-board, tailored support

The ENM is supporting Mali's National Judicial Training Institute (INFJ) to boost its teaching capacity and become a judicial training centre that will be a reference for others and serve all the judicial professions in Mali. ENM experts in educational management and instructional engineering are mobilised and working not only on the organisation and the training programmes, but also on the governance issues. "In this PAJM II, the ENM has put forward a methodology that covers everything from the reinforcement of the Institute, the structuring of the INFJ's initial and in-service training, and taking in, in particular, trainer training and themed training", explains Héloïse Verweyen, a project officer in the International Department of the ENM.

Video conferencing central to the educational project

Distance learning has been key to this project since the outset. "In 2018, as part of the Malian Justice Support Programme (PAJM 1), the European Union equipped the INFJ with a video conference room. This facility has opened up new perspectives for judicial cooperation with Mali", points out Héloïse Verweyen.
From a trailblazing practice in 2018, distance meetings have now gone fully mainstream thanks to the pandemic. "Although we can handle a certain number of projects remotely, such as the work on a reference standard of judges and prosecutors' professional skills or the development of themed training modules, face-to-face meetings remain indispensable, and we hope that we will be able to send out experts or welcome groups to France as soon as possible, especially so that we can devise and start implementing training curricula that meet the needs of justice professionals, both new recruits (initial training) and serving professionals (in-service training)", she continues.

Structure of the INFJ's initial and in-service training

The ENM's role is to support the INFJ with structuring its initial training. The project is a far-reaching one: "Between day 1 of the student judge or prosecutor's training to the end of in-service training, everything needs rethinking, from what modules to teach to how much time to give to each teaching unit", recites Alice Alethic, head of the International Department at the ENM.
This covers actions like the creation of a sequencing of the study periods, including the periods spent on internships, the production of an educational mock-up or the design of an internship tutor's guide. There is still the initial training audit to be planned on the INFJ's premises. This will be done on site if the public health situation allows it.

On the in-service training side, the ENM's expert judge and prosecutor training coordinators are providing their assistance to design in-service training catalogues. Alongside this work, themed training courses are being delivered by the ENM to Malian judges and prosecutors. For example, from November 2020 to February this year, four courses were held by video conference on the themes of freezing criminal assets, international criminal cooperation, the fight against cybercrime and judicial communication.

Currently, the ENM is participating in the creation of a reference standard for judges and prosecutors' skills, again by video conference and involving close collaboration between an expert member of the judiciary from the ENM and a dedicated working group within the INFJ. "Once established, this document will serve as solid working base for the INFJ", says Alice Thibaud.

Training trainers: a priority for the INFJ

One of the future projects the ENM will be conducting will concern the training of judge and prosecutor trainers. "This action remains a structural priority in the project," explains the project officer. The aim is to professionalise the practices of the 12 members of the judiciary on the INFJ's teaching staff who are responsible for passing on their knowledge while continuing to practise in the courts. "In particular the ENM has proposed to set up a system of educational coaching, with situational simulations, in order to assist the Malian trainers with the preparation of their training sessions," she continues.

Support in in the internal governance of the INFJ

"There is real demand for modernisation and a genuine desire to move forward and change mentalities," announces Alice Thibaud. Supporting the INFJ in structuring its governance, among other things, is making it possible to objectively size up the needs of a judicial school in terms of human resources. The reflection needed by this part of the project would be facilitated by face-to-face sessions with delegations coming to the ENM in France.

Malian Justice Support Programme

The ENM's support for the INFJ is being implemented as part of component 2 "Faster, independent and impartial justice" of the Malian Justice Support Programme II (PAJM II) which covers the period 2020-2023. This programme funded by the European Union and managed by the interministerial operator Expertise France aims to strengthen the rule of law and restore trust in Malian justice. The 2 strategic areas covered are prison administration and the training of justice professionals. The ENM's intervention is part of this second component. The PAJM II in turn is part of Mali's Justice Orientation and Programming Law 2020-2024.

The partners involved in this project

Several French schools are involved in this cooperation project alongside the ENM: the National School of Court Clerks (ENG), the National Bar Council (CNB), the High Council of French Notaries, the National Chamber of Judicial Officers (CNCJ). This interprofessional approach is dictated by the missions of the INFJ which has a specific remit in that it trains the entire Malian judicial body: trainee judges and prosecutors, serving judges and prosecutors, judicial professionals and public legal officers and the legal professions.

The ENM supports the Malian National Judicial Training Institute