Dili, 2 May 2000
Two international experts arrived in Dili yesterday to strengthen the training of judges and to launch a new mentoring program for the 16 Timorese judges, prosecutors and public defenders who were appointed so far to the courts of Dili, Baucau and Oecussi.
The training program will deal with case studies relating to murder, since in the near future the judges will be dealing mainly with murder cases.
The mentoring program will focus on such areas as the international legal norms in criminal procedure, trial simulation and the organization of the court clerks.
Also this week, a delegation of experts of the International Development Law Institute (IDLI) is due to arriving in Dili to assess the further training needs of judicial personnel.
With an allocation of US$700,000 from the US State Department, IDLI, an international organization based in Italy and specialized in the training of judicial personnel throughout the world, will provide training for Timorese judicial personnel judicial police, prosecutors, judges, public defenders and court clerks for a period of two years.
MORE JOBS IN DILI
Until the end of the week, 500 more people will be employed in Dili in a program to clean the drainage system of the capital. It is expected that at least 1,000 people will be working on this specific project by the end of May.
The agreement for this new Transitional Employment Program (TEP) was signed on Monday by UNTAET and USAid (United Nations Agency for International Development), the agency that funds the project.
TEPs are short-term employment projects that are in place in almost all the thirteen districts of East Timor. The focus is mainly the maintenance of roads, drainage clean up and repair of damaged buildings.
More than 8,000 people are currently employed in TEPs across East Timor.
