On December 17, 2019, the Judicial Debate Tournament “Dignity and Non-Discrimination as a European Union Values” was held at the Sumy State University. The event was organized within the framework of the educational project “600115-EPP-1-2018-1-UA-EPPJMO-MODULE Implementing the European Union values in Ukraine”, with the financial support of the EU Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency within the Module Jean Monet of the Erasmus + program.
This year, the Tournament brought together representatives of the Sumy Branch of Kharkiv University of Internal Affairs (“Ad hoc” team), Sumy National Agrarian University (“Law and order” and “Sagacitas” teams) and Academic and Research Institute of Law of Sumy State University (Team “Honor”). The judges of the tournament were Judge of Sumy District Administrative Court Olena Osipova, PhD in Law Victoria Pankratova and PhD in Law, Associate Professor Alena Klochko.
The organizers set themselves the goal of fostering respect for human dignity and testing the mechanisms of protection of the person against discrimination provided by the Ukrainian legislation. The stories debated by students related to inhumane conditions of detention in prisons, lack of proper medical care, discrimination against Roma children, etc.
“We wanted not only to talk about dignity in the legal sense, but also to convince the participants of the event that dignity is inherent in every person, regardless of their origin, age, beliefs, previous behavior, etc. We have also focused our efforts on promoting inclusion and ending stigmatization of vulnerable population groups”, – noted the Tournament Leader and the member of the project team Anna Slavko.
“Respect for the dignity of each person and non-discrimination serve as the basis of all European civilization, the foundation on which quality health care, proper social security, quality education, and many other things are made. The Judicial Debate Tournament “Dignity and Non-Discrimination as European Union Values” is aimed at attracting the attention of future legal practitioners to the problems of law enforcement in Ukraine, – summed up the academic coordinator of the project Vladislava Zavgorodnya.
