Project Partners Meeting in Oslo

Within the project Supporting National Human Rights Institutions in Monitoring Fundamental Rights and the Fundamental Rights aspects of the Rule of Law (Project website), the Centre took part in a Project Partners Meeting in Oslo on 30 and 31 August 2023.

On 30 August, the Centre participated at the public meeting “Taking stock of rule of law challenges in Europe – perspectives from National Human Rights Institutions” organized by the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions (ENNHRI) as an expert partner of the Project. The meeting focused on the work of national human right institutions and ENNHRI in addressing rule of law through their human rights mandate and the key role of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), the leading partner of the project. The regional trends regarding rule of law, fundamental rights, enabling environment and functioning of national human rights institutions were discussed. During the meeting, the Centre introduced its Rule of Law Report for the previous year and key findings and challenges concerning the rule of law situation in Slovakia.

On the second day of the meeting, the project partners discussed the key findings in the framework of activities carried out within the project and deliberated on the forthcoming activities. The Centre presented its publications on fundamental rights aspects of the rule of law and the application of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights:

• Report on the role of national bodies with a human rights remit in ensuring fundamental rights compliance of EU funds – The report is focused on the Centre´s potential role in implementation of the fundamental rights conditionalities in the Slovak Republic, based on the analysis of the structure of the implementation of EU Funds in Slovakia.
• Human rights structures in Slovakia – The aim of this report is to map all institutions whose mandate contributes in any way to the protection of human rights in Slovakia.
• Baseline report on the potential for strengthening the fundamental rights situation through a stronger use of the Charter – The report aims at analysing the fundamental rights situation with regard to the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and its use by the judicial, executive and legislative powers in Slovakia.

The outputs are to be published at the website in both English and Slovak version in the forthcoming days. The Centre also presented the upcoming Rule of Law Festival that is to be organised this autumn in the form of business brunches in Bratislava, Banská Bystrica and Košice.