TECHNOLOGY, EDUCATION AND KNOWLEDGE TRANSMISSION IN ADULT EDUCATION - THEORETICAL BACKGROUNDS AND LESSONS FROM JUDICIAL REFORM IN BOSNIA AND HERCEGOVINA

In modern societies there is a prevalent understanding that universal education of the holders of judicial functions is a prerequisite of truly independent and impartial judiciary and one of the conditions for its efficiency. It seems that the time constantly adds to the importance of this education. Only self-confident and completely professional judiciary could resist to influences of legislative and executive powers.

The judicial reform was launched in 2000, by adoption of the Law on courts and judicial service in the entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, whereby for the first time in our history High Judicial and Prosecutorial Councils were established in each entity as completely new bodies mainly composed of judicial representatives in charge of proposing the appointments and dismissals of the judges and prosecutors to the parliaments. Law on High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina regulates that judges and prosecutors shall be “individuals possessing integrity, high moral standing, and demonstrated professional ability with the appropriate training and qualifications“.

High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC) anticipates professional advancement of the judges and prosecutors and advises the entity Judicial Training Centers and Judicial Commission of Br?ko District of Bosnia and Herzegovina on relevant programs for professional training of judges and prosecutors, and sets the minimum scope of professional Before the Law on Judicial Training Centers was adopted, the training programs were mainly organized in the form of seminars or some other activities organized by the Association of Judges and Prosecutors or certain international organizations. Training of individuals who intended to become judges or prosecutors was exclusively conducted through training of law trainees who, working at the courts or prosecutors’ offices, prepared themselves for the bar exam or through occasionally organized set of seminars for preparing the trainees for bar exams. The idea was that Centers provide not only advanced professional training but also induction training, which is a vital element for success of ongoing judicial reform and long-term education of judges and prosecutors and misdemeanor judges.

JPT Centers educate large number of geographically distributed judges and prosecutors in BiH. With support of international organizations for that purpose completely new web based learning management system, based on open source Moodle software established. After one year main players realized that this LMS is utilized without full potential. The need of Training of trainers in area of e-learning in terms of educational methodologies and pedagogy was logical next step. This will enable JPTC to provide an on-line catalog of standard face-to-face and distance learning offerings and will play a key role in monitoring student progress and ensuring training quality control.

In this paper we gave important elements identified as critical success factors in two-phase educational process of Training of Trainers for e-learning and e-content creation for online education of judges and prosecutors in BiH.