Third sub-regional Training Course on Visits to Prisons for Public Defenders of Argentina

Date: 4 June 2007 Place: La Plata, Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina Partners: The Forum for Democratic Justice (FOJUDE)
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Argentina
Attorney General’s Office of the Province of Buenos Aires
Centre for Studies of Public Defense (CEDEP) Donor: The Embassy of Switzerland in Argentina
Participants: Public defenders and other members of the judiciary from provinces of central Argentina
Purpose: Encourage public defenders of Argentina to conduct regular visits to prisons and provide them with training on how to conduct these visits with a view to preventing torture and improving detention conditions;
Situate the particular role of public defenders within the more general context of torture prevention measures and the specific context of implementation of the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture (OPCAT).    
Background: This is the third and final course of a national training project aimed at strengthening the role of public defense lawyers in the prevention of torture and ill-treatment through regular visits to prisons.  The first course was targeted for public defenders from provinces in the north of the country, the second for provinces in the south and the third for the central provinces.  This Swiss-funded project gives continuity to a joint 2005 initiative by the APT, the Ministry of Justice of Argentina and the Centre for Legal Studies (CELS) to develop torture prevention strategies for the judiciary in Argentina, including through the distribution and use of a University of Essex Manual on the role of the judiciary in combating torture.
Documents: Event Program
Contact Person: Claudia Gerez, APT Americas Programme Officer cgerez@apt.ch