The 2015 State Budget allocation of $26,320 million for the Ministry of Justice (MJ) will be used mainly for judicial training.
Vice Minister of Justice Ivo Jorge Valente said the $26.320 million will be taken from the human development capital funds to provide the training to the ombudsman, judges, prosecution lawyers, public defense lawyer and the notaries.
Plans include opening vacancies to train 45 new judges, 30 lawyers and 12 to 15 notaries.
“It will be mainly for building of human resources in the justice sector,” said VM Valente from his office in Colmera, Dili.
He added that in 2014 the Judicial Training Centre successfully trained some 11 judges, 11 public defense lawyers and 12 public prosecutors.
“These have already been allocated to the courts and at the public prosecutions ministry,” added the vice minister.
Annually the judicial training centre receives application for training but all applications go through a selection process to ensure only those who are qualified attend the training.
Member of Parliament MP Aurelio Ribeiro said the MJ trains many candidates for the judicial sector annually, including judge training, but only manages to qualify a low amount of them, meaning every year it opens more training opportunities for judges.
“It is difficult to find quality graduates,” he said.
MP Riberio said the Timorese judicial system shows some progress though because it has been able to set up a judicial training centre.
