Advise to the Education of Judges in Greenland

LEARN|RIGHT supports the Court of Greenland with the planning and implementation of a two-year district court judge education. We contribute with:

· Stronger educational framework
· Pedagogical advise to the educators
· Ongoing participant feedbacks and documentation
· Evaluation

Since 2016 LEARN|RIGHT has contributed to ensuring a strengthened education of Judges in Greenland. We assist the Courts of Greenland with the educational framework of the two-year education in the form of advice and input to the curriculum, course descriptions, semester calendar, teacher guide with activity catalogue, and evaluations.

We are responsible for the ongoing pedagogical advice with up to 20 teachers on programme development of the almost 50 courses, where we keep a sharp focus on participant logic and interactive learning methods.

We follow the graduates closely through our facilitation of the semester introductions and ongoing collection of participant feedback on the courses through online questionnaires.

For each course, we prepare a final report with a documentation of the course program and materials and recommendations for any future initiatives in relation to the learning environment, teaching methods or content. Finally, we are responsible for clarifying the candidates’ need for repetition through self-evaluations, as well as for the pedagogical scaffolding of the participants’ project assignments.

LEARN|RIGHT has contributed to the education of judges in the 2017-19, 2018-20 and 2019-2022 programme. Prior to the 2018-20 programme, LEARN|RIGHT prepared a report with documentation for and evaluation of the 2017-19 programme based on the ongoing course feedback, document review and an evaluation workshop with participants and organisers. In the evaluation, we brought a number of recommendations for the upcoming education, curriculum, course descriptions and teacher guide, which have formed the basis for building an even stronger framework for the education.

LEARN|RIGHTs director, Maria Løkke Rasmussen, has worked in and with Greenland since 2007 and has substantial knowledge of Greenlandic culture and the education and justice system.

The Greenlandic justice system and  the Judge Education

The Greenlandic justice system is in many ways unique. Not only does it cover an enormous land with a very small population that is spread across the coast-line, it is also bilingual and focus on rehabilitation instead of punishment. Judges, criminal defenders and prosecutors in the district courts do not have a law degree. Instead the district judges have a special district court judge education implemented by the Court of Greenland in accordance with the procedural law of 2010. In 2014 the first curriculum was developed, which Maria Løkke Rasmussen, later director of LEARN|RIGHT contributed to amongst others by carrying out a stakeholde analysis.