News

Dear Colleagues,

Pursuant to Art. 21, para. 2 of the PDJS Articles of Association, the PDJS Management Board hereby convenes the General Meeting which will be held on 29 March 2009 (Sunday) at 11:00 a.m. in the PDJS office at 40 Nikola Petkov Blvd., Sofia and will have the following agenda:

On 16 January 2009 in Sofia, a meeting was held of the chairpersons of Model Courts and Courts in Partnership. These are the courts which took part in the eponymous program of the United States Agency for International Development which was carried out by the Judicial Strengthening Initiative in the period 2000 – 2007.

Dear colleagues,

Pursuant to Art. 21, para. 2 of the Articles of Association, the PDJS Management Board hereby convenes the General Meeting on 26 January 20008 at 11:00 a.m. at the PDJS office at 54 Tsar Boris III Str., Sofia, with the following agenda:

1. Adopt the report on the activities of the PDJS in 2007.
2. Change in the Management Board.
3. Discuss current and future projects of the PDJS.
4. Accept new members of the Association.
5. Miscellaneous.

The Program for the Development of the Judicial System has organised a series of presentations of the special system for presenting evidence in court hearings electronically which were held in Sofia, Veliko Turnovo and Varna in April 2008. The system was provided by the Judicial Strengthening Initiative in 2007 to the following courts: Sofia Appellate Court, Plovdiv Appellate Court, Varna District Court and Veliko Turnovo District Court.

On 6 June 2008, a meeting of the Supreme Judicial Council with the participants in the Model Courts and Courts in Partnership Program which was implemented by the Judicial Strengthening Initiative (JSI) of the United States Agency for International Development from 2003 till September 2007 was held in the US Embassy in Sofia. After the close of the work of the JSI, the courts are continuing the efforts to implement and expand the Program with the support of the Program for the Development of the Judicial System.

The *Consortium For a Dialogue with the Administration* in which the Program for the Development of the Judicial System takes part alongside PR and Media, Alpha Research, the Institute for Market Economics and Europrojects Point, has organised a series of information days dedicated to the Operational Programme Administrative Capacity co-funded by the European Union through the European Social Fund.

The the Information Center of the Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Bulgaria which has been built with the assistance of the Program for the Development of the Judicial System (PDJS) under a project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) opens on 9 September 2008.