Job: INTERNATIONAL TRAINER/CONSULTANT (JHRA)

Location : Kabul, AFGHANISTAN

Application Deadline : 14-Oct-13

Additional Category: Democratic Governance

Type of Contract : Individual Contract

Post Level : International Consultant

Languages Required : English

Starting Date : (date when the selected candidate is expected to start) 28-Oct-2013

Duration of Initial Contract : Three training sessions of five-day duration each.

Expected Duration of Assignment :1-2 months

Background

Afghanistan's justice system faces extraordinary challenges. Justice sector infrastructure has often been destroyed or damaged by fighting or decay during the years of conflict; a large number of Afghanistan's court houses are in need of construction or rehabilitation. Legal professionals are very often the victims of violence by insurgent groups who target them as agents of the state; threatening of justice officials, particularly in the less secure regions of the country is absolutely commonplace, and assassinations are also common. Corruption is a constant concern; judges and other justice system officials are poorly paid, justice system capacity to prosecute corruption is very limited, and corruption is perceived as rampant both within and outside the justice system. The Government of Afghanistan (GoA) and international community are concerned about bolstering the credibility of the 'formal' justice system, recognizing that Afghanistan's traditional justice system plays a major role in resolving conflicts yet does so at times in violation of national and international human rights obligations, particularly the rights of women.

Following continuous engagement in supporting Afghanistan's justice sector since 2002, UNDP Afghanistan's justice sector support has now entered a new phase. The Justice and Human Rights in Afghanistan (JHRA Phase II) Project draws on the lessons learned through previous UNDP justice projects– Strengthening the Justice System of Afghanistan (SJSA), Access to Justice at District Level (AJDL) and Justice and Human Rights Phase I.

The 1st phase of JHRA Project was implemented from June 2009- 30 June 2012. The project was designed to support the achievement of the priorities and benchmarks on human rights, rule of law and justice as highlighted in the Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS) and the Afghanistan Compact. The JHRA project worked to improve access to justice at the national and provincial levels in Afghanistan. Programmatic interventions were undertaken by using human rights based approach that simultaneously strengthened citizens' capacity to claim their rights and enhanced the capacity of justice delivery system actors to deliver justice in compliance with the rule of law and human rights standards. The Project activities included awareness raising through training justice officials, and raising the human rights awareness of community members including school teachers and students, and the general public and villages throughout districts in Afghanistan. It also engaged with the rehabilitation of district justice facilities providing emergency infrastructure works and basic equipment so facilities can function. At the national level, the project assisted the three national justice institutions including; the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), the Supreme Court (SCt), and the Attorney General's Office (AGO) in strengthening their capacity so as to be able to better contribute to the justice reform process and the realization of human rights in Afghanistan.

The new phase of JHRA, Phase II was initiated in January 2013. JHRA Phase II will leverage on the work undertaken in Phase I and deepen the interventions at the national level and provincial levels and attempt to work across the justice sector, involving the rule of law service providers.

JHRA Phase II Project support the overall strategy of Government to increase the Afghan public's trust in State justice institutions. By contributing to the National Priority Programs (NPP 5-6) on 'Access to Justice for All' on 'Human Rights and Civic Responsibilities' JHRA seeks to provide necessary foundation for the establishment of State legitimacy between the Afghan State and its people.

JHRA assumes a comprehensive programmatic approach:

• Output 1: High-level coordination mechanisms for developing policy and legislation in accordance with international and national standards are established and functional in State justice institutions;
• Output 2: Mechanisms for providing quality access to justice services to vulnerable groups are established and functional;
• Output 3: Public participation processes and knowledge base for improving access to justice and human rights compliance established;
• Output 4: Project Support Unit: Internal oversight, monitoring and evaluation capacity in place.

Output 1 activities include providing capacity development and technical expertise to key departments and units within the Minister of Justice (MoJ) as the General Directorate of the Institute for Legislative Drafting and Legal Research, known as 'Taqnin', Policy and Planning Department, Translation Board and Human Rights Support Unit.

The Taqnin Department, established by law in 1341 (1962) within MoJ, is responsible for drafting and reviewing all national legislation for compliance with Afghanistan's legal framework, Constitution, the tenets of Sharia and Islamic Law, and the country's international legal commitments. Since then, Taqnin has played a principal role in the legislative drafting process of Afghanistan. Chapter Two, Part V of Official Gazette 787 outlines the specific duties of the Taqnin:

• Drafting and examining all of Afghanistan's legislative documents; Providing advice to the government as to the conformity of Afghanistan's laws with international agreements to which the country is (or may become) a party and strengthening relationships between legal institutions of Afghanistan and those of other countries;
• Contacting other relevant ministries and other government departments when preparing laws and offering opinions about the interpretation of laws;
• Ensuring proper translation of Afghanistan's laws in both Dari and Pashto and, where necessary, translating laws of other Islamic countries into Dari and Pashto and translating Afghanistan's laws into foreign languages;
• Compiling, translating and publishing books and other academic resources to promote public knowledge of the legal system and using the mass media to disseminate information regarding the country's laws;
• Providing guidance on laws to other MoJ departments and particularly, providing guidance on correcting any defects in relevant procedures.

While the Constitution provides the framework for the passing of laws, several key issues remain unclear and must be addressed in order to improve the legislative process. Laws and procedures, including the recently approved 'Regulation on Procedure of Preparing and Processing Legislative Documents', which covers regulations and other legislative documents, must be updated in order to meet Afghanistan's current needs. More clear definitions and methodologies must be devised to ensure that procedural requirements are followed and to correct any defects in relevant procedures.

In response to these needs and to attend the request made by Taqnin to the Justice and Human Rights in Afghanistan (JHRA), the Project will provide the technical and financial support to organize a series of trainings to enhance the technical capacity and legal expertise of Taqnin members within key areas of policy formulation, legal research methodology, comprehensive mechanism of law drafting and legal procedure and critically reviewing, harmonizing and scrutinizing of laws.

The trainings will be included within the JHRA Phase II project Output 1 to provide capacity development and technical expertise to key departments and units within the Minister of Justice (MoJ). Specifically, Activity Result 1.3 is focus on increasing the MOJ's capacity to effectively reform law through the General Directorate of the Institute for Legislative Drafting and Legal Research by mentoring, coaching and sharing of best practice for Taqnin staff, specially in the areas of law drafting and legal research methodology . It is expected that with a total pool of 6 trainers, JHRA will facilitate 30 days of trainings for the staff of the Taqnin.

Duties and Responsibilities

Functions / Key Results Expected

Under the overall supervision of Project Management Specialist, Component 1 JHRA and in coordination with the Director of the General Directorate of the Institute for Legislative Drafting and Legal Research, the International Trainers will be responsible for enhancing the technical capacity and legal expertise of Taqnin Staff within key areas of its work, related to policy formulation, legal research methodology, comprehensive legislative drafting, law making process, and reviewing and scrutinizing of laws.

Main duties and responsibilities:

• Organize and manage training modules pertaining to the field of law drafting for Taqnin Staff;
• Organize training modules in accordance with interactive adult learning tools;
• Prepare presentations for each training session;
• Include updated reading materials and other literature prior to training sessions;
• Present practical and theoretical knowledge regarding the legal system of Afghanistan, with an emphasis on new legislation;
• Prepare reading materials and working materials to be used by the participants during the training sessions;
• Organize training sessions in an interactive manner, for the outmost benefit of the participants;
• Provide training using 'coaching and mentoring' to develop individual capacity of Taqnin Staff;
• Utilize practical methods of teaching, including case-studies, practices and concrete examples;
• At the end of a training session of 5 days, each trainer will be required to provide the trainees an assessment of skills that were imparted during the training period of five days.

Provide capacity building trainings to the Taqnin staff in following legal areas:

Training 1

• Modalities of law drafting;
• Structure of legislative documents;
• The legislative drafting procedure;
• Techniques to develop a legislative calendar.

Training 2

• Legal research methodology;
• The harmonization and scrutinizing of legislative documents;
• Comparison between laws in terms of contradictions and overlapping;
• Practical approaches of law drafting and techniques of legislation.

Training 3

• Law drafting process in foreign countries;
• Relevance of international instruments and human rights standards in law drafting;
• Relevance of the consultative process within the law drafting procedure;
• Relevance of jurisprudence in law drafting;
• Relevance of gender impact analysis in law drafting.

Timeline

It is expected that a series of three workshops, of five-day duration each one, will be conducted on these topics during 2013. The trainers or professors in teams of two may travel to Kabul for a period of 7 days to conduct the 5 day trainings for the Taqnin department. The coordination of the international trainers will be provided by JHRA.

Methodology

The legal trainings will be conducted in the form of workshops. The details of which will be agreed upon between the parties in advance. The legal trainings will be translated simultaneously from English to Dari and vice versa. The interpretation/translation facilities will be provided by JHRA. Practical exercises maybe undertaken to ensure engagement between the Taqnin staff and the international experts.

Objective of the Legal Training Courses

It is expected that the trainings will provide practical skills to undertake:

• Transposition of government policies into clear and effective laws that can be understood and applied by a variety of stakeholders;
• Understand the responsibilities of a legislative drafter, the importance of grammar, and why legislative drafts take the form they do;
• Understand the role of drafters in relation to constitutional provisions, human right standards and international treaties.
• Acquire the fundamental knowledge and skills on how to write legislative sentences to create particular legal rules (legislative syntax);
• Scrutinize details of the technical features of legislation such as writing definitions and those aspects that are typically covered in preliminary and final provisions;
• Undertake detailed consideration to legislative amendments and the drafting of subsidiary legislation;
• Learn techniques in order to avoid overlapping and contradiction between laws;
• Understand the relevance of the consultative process in law drafting.

Impact of Results

• Enhance understanding and knowledge of the participants regarding the mechanism of law drafting and legislative procedure, to enable them to draft, harmonize and critically review legal documents which are prepared for the Taqnin;
• Enhance the technical capacity of the participants in dealing with treaty obligations and international conventions and human rights standards as well as other Government priorities;
• Ensure a greater and closer coordination of efforts of the Ministry of Justice with line Ministries and the National Assembly in the law-making process;
• Ensure that legislative priorities are set transparently, draft documents meet the needs of the country and that officials responsible for drafting, reviewing and adopting such documents have a sound understanding of the underlying policies and the meaning and intention of the various articles;
• Ensure it is well-understood what laws and provisions of laws are currently valid and enforceable since new laws sometimes create uncertainty about the status of other laws on the same or similar topics.

Key Deliverables:

• Preparation of a work-plan and an agenda within two weeks before the beginning of the trainings. This will be a part of the home based work including the preparatory time;
• Identification of the weaknesses and strengths of the participants regarding key areas of law drafting and legal research;
• Design of the structure and content of the legal trainings and assist in development of course modules and teaching materials;
• Development of a final exam for the participants after each training session;
• Final and comprehensive report to be provided by each trainer or a team of trainers after each training session describing the overall performance of the class including their grade level, the shortcomings of the class, assessment on the suitability of the learning materials, the number of trained participants, their level of improvement and an appropriate ‘follow-up' activities for the class including the lessons learned.

Competencies

Core Competencies:

• Demonstrated ability in developing training material, and conducting trainings;
• Capacity to diagnose issues and find solutions;
• Capacity to inspire/motivate/lead others;
• Willingness to develop coaching and training skills;
• Demonstrated capacity for focus and discipline.

Corporate Competencies:

• Demonstrates commitment to UNDP's mission, vision and values;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Highest standards of integrity, discretion and loyalty.

Functional Competencies

• Promotes a knowledge sharing and learning culture in the office;
• Actively works towards continuing personal learning and development in one or more Practice Areas, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills.
• Ability to provide top quality policy advice;
• In-depth practical knowledge of inter-disciplinary development issues.
• Good interpersonal and diplomacy skills that allow for working productively as part of a larger team;
• Ability to use critical thinking, conceptualize ideas, and articulate relevant subject matter in a clear and concise way.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills in English;
• Ability to communicate effectively with and relate to people of different cultures, demonstrating an ability to see issues from other perspectives.
• Strong organizational and reporting skills;
• Results oriented, strong team player with outstanding interpersonal and coordination skills;
• Ability to work independently;
• Ability to establish substantive professional relationships with all stakeholders;
• Familiarity with post-conflict environments is an asset.
• Knowledge of legislative drafting techniques;
• Knowledge of legal research methodology;
• Knowledge of comparative law and best practices in law in Islamic jurisprudence;
• Ability to provide recommendations related to drafting and reviewing of legislative documents;.

Development and Operational Effectiveness

• Ability to lead implementation of new systems (business side), and affect staff behavioral/ attitudinal change.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Advanced University Degree in Law.

Experience:

• At least 7 years of expertise in the field of Law;Knowledge in Sharia or Islamic Jurisprudence, is an asset;
• Work experience in different areas of legislative drafting and legal research in accordance with modern methods;
• Experience in teaching and/or training in the legal field;
• Strong managerial competency with experience in results based management and results oriented approach to project implementation;
• Project implementation experience with the UN system a strong asset;Experience working at international level;
• Experience of working in task force and participatory legislative reforms process;
• Experience in conducting research, publishing academic material, teaching and serving in advisory roles in Middle East and Asian Universities that appoint faculty members from different parts of the world and have entered in international educational collaborations, partnerships and exchange programmes, and research partnerships with elite universities and institutions from across the globe.

Language Requirements:

• Excellent knowledge of English.
• Knowledge of Dari or Pashto is an asset.

Presentation of Offer

The following documents are requested:

• Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP;
• Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references;
• Brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment, and a methodology on how they will approach and complete the assignment;
• Financial Proposal that indicates the all-inclusive fixed total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs, as per template provided. If an Offeror is employed by an organization/company/institution, and he/she expects his/her employer to charge a management fee in the process of releasing him/her to UNDP under Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA), the Offeror must indicate at this point, and ensure that all such costs are duly incorporated in the financial proposal submitted to UNDP.

Criteria for Selection of the Best Offer

It will use the Combined Scoring method:

Qualifications and methodology presented in the technical proposal will be weighted at 70% as follows:

• Suitability of the work-plan and of the design of the structure and content of the legal trainings and the teaching materials: 20
• International Experience :10
• Training Experience : 20
• Professional Experience in the area of specialization: 10
• Language Qualifications:10

Financial proposal will be weighted at 30%.

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.

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