The Foundation delivers two regional workshops to Ukrainian legal professionals
The Max Planck Foundation continues a series of workshops for legal professionals at regional legal aid centres who deal with legal issues that internally displaced persons encounter in their daily lives. The second and third in a series of regional workshops planned for 2019 took place from 25-28 February in Kharkiv and Poltava, respectively. Representatives of the legal aid centres from the Kharkiv and Poltava Oblaststook part in the workshops. The Head of the Department for Monitoring of Rights of Internally Displaced Persons at the Secretariat of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights also participated. On behalf of the Foundation, a Senior Research Fellow welcomed the participants to the events and introduced them to the workshop agenda.
The workshop programme covered a wide range of issues related to the international protection of IDPs as well as the responsibility of the State authorities to provide effective protection to this vulnerable group. Topics discussed included non-discrimination, durable solutions for internally displaces individuals, access to pensions and social guarantees, access to identification and civil registration documents, housing issues, property restitution and compensation, legal remedies, compensation for victims of the armed conflict as well as the issues related to the applicability of the ECHR in the non-government controlled territories. The participants took part in practical exercises prepared by the organisers and trainers of the workshops.