On 28 October 2015, as part of its mandate, UNAMID’s Human Rights Section, in collaboration with the North Darfur Chief Judges Office, organized a two-day training workshop on national and international human rights standards, focusing on administration of justice in North Darfur Judiciary. 

The training, aimed at enhancing capacity of rural judges and community leaders in the administration of justice system in their communities, was attended by the Chief Judge and the Prosecutor General of North Darfur, among other prosecutors and rural courts judges from El Fasher rural areas.

In his opening remarks, Igor Reif, a Human Right Officer, emphasized on the importance of the judges and the community leaders’ roles in Darfur. “Rural judges and community leaders are responsible for implementing the national and international human rights standards in Darfur, a region where there are many vulnerable people including women and children,” he said. Mr. Reif also stated that ‘’everybody should be respected and should not be discriminated against regardless of belief, gender, age or religion”. 

The Chief Judge of North Darfur, Faisal El Trify, thanked UNAMID for its support in improving the judicial system in North Darfur. He appealed to the rural judges and community leaders to put into practice the knowledge gained through the workshop. 

Ahmed Yousuf, a participant in the training session, expressed appreciation to UNAMID for providing the workshop. “We highly appreciate the support of UNAMID, but we hope to have more of such training with more participation of women,” he added.

In his closing remarks, the General Prosecutor of North Darfur said that human rights are for everybody and rural judges and community leaders should be fair in dispensing justice. He added “We thank all the facilitators for their support. We will make sure that human rights standards are implemented accordingly in North Darfur State”.

Informative presentations were also made on juvenile justice, judicial mechanism in Sudan and the role of rural court judges in investigations and fair trials. The training was concluded with the distribution of certificates to all participants.