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Contents

About PATENT
Introduction
1. The Aims and Activities of the Court Watch Program
2. Training Volunteers to Monitor
3. The Contents of the Monitoring Sheets
4. The Results of the Court Watch Program
  Are hearings public?
  Lost in the net of rights
  Children as the victims of DV and IPV
  Insufficient protection of victims
5. Interviews with Women on their Court Experiences
6. The Path Forward: Following, Developing and Realizing Best Practices
7. Recommendations

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Introduction

PATENT already conducted a similar court watch program (also funded by the Norwegian NGO Fund) during which volunteers were trained to monitor court hearings related to domestic violence in 2013-14. This activity was carried on in our second Court Watch Program running from March 2015 until April 2016.

The court watch program is based on volunteers' activities. Our volunteers were students of law, psychology and social work, lawyers, other professionals and also women who had lived in violent relationships. Our only expectation was that they should be able to observe how courts treat the victims of domestic violence.

Court responses to cases involving domestic and intimate partner violence show that many judges are not trained to deal with such cases: they often have prejudices that make them blind to the reality of battered women and children, and they often blame the victims themselves.

The aim of our activity was to collect data on the transparency of courts and the handling of domestic violence cases. We hope that monitoring will continue and develop into a movement; the control of courts' activities is a basic element of a constitutional state.

Budapest, 11th April 2016

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