A Regional Board consisting of senior experts from across the region develops the strategy, direction and priorities of the network, ensuring that the Network caters to both local and regional areas of interest, problems, and priorities.
Membership of our Regional Board continues to grow. By the end of 2022, it will be comprised of judges and experts from all participating jurisdictions.
REGIONAL BOARD MEMBERS
Biljana leads the AIRE Centre’s Western Balkans Rule of Law Programme. She has delivered more than fifty extensive rule of law projects in partnership with key national institutions and international agencies over 20 years. These have included gender equality and other forms of technical assistance, human rights training, legislative reform, good governance and the fight against corruption and organised crime. A lawyer by training with degrees from Belgrade University and Lund University’s Raul Wallenberg Institute, Biljana began her career at the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights. She founded and co-edits the professional legal bulletin, Human Rights in Europe, now in its 150th edition. Most recently, she has co-authored a series of guides for judges, decision makers and practitioners in South East Europe focusing on a range of human rights topics, including fair trial and independent judiciaries, migration, COVID-19 and its impact on human rights, and gender equality in ECtHR jurisprudence. She is a member of the boards of the AIRE Centre USA and the International Bridges to Justice.
Kosana Beker obtained a PhD degree at the Center for Gender Studies, University of Novi Sad on the topic of intersectional discrimination of women. She has been human rights activist and lawyer for many years, particularly in the area of women’s rights. Currently, she is program director of Women’s Rights Organization FemPlatz and works as a consultant in the area of anti-discrimination and gender equality. She authored and co-authored numerous reports, analysis and publications on implementation of national and international antidiscrimination legislation, women’s rights and disability rights.
Sabina manages the overall Western Balkans Rule of Law Programme. She works with individual project managers to support them in planning and executing project activities, managing resources and ensuring coordination and synergy across all the projects. She leads the Centre’s work on monitoring and evaluation and takes an overview of donor management. She has 20+ years of experience in programme and project management within international and multinational organizations, with extensive achievements in strategic planning, programme and project development and implementation, performance review and evaluation. A particular focus of her work is on good governance, accountability and transparency and economic development. For the past 5 years, her primary focus was on gender equality with specific focus on economic empowerment of women. During COVID-19, Sabina organized a number of sessions with universities across BiH on misrepresentation of women in public life, reaching over 300 students and professors. When working at the British Embassy in Sarajevo, Sabina worked on development of the Gender pledge, an internal document listing the commitments of the organisation towards equal rights of men and women.
Throughout her career, Vanja Radevic has held various positions within the Montenegrin judicial system and governmental institutions. After working at the Higher Court of Montenegro, she enhanced her knowledge of human rights by working as an Advisor to the State Representative of Montenegro before the European Court of Human Rights. During the 42 nd assembly of the Montenegrin Government, she held the position of Advisor for Foreign Policy to the Prime Minister. She has been a member of various working groups within the Council of Europe regarding the civil sector and national institutions for the protection of human rights. She has also co-authored numerous publications analysing the implementation of legislation regarding human rights in Montenegro.
Ardjana Shehi Kalo has over 30 years professional experience, mainly as a practicing lawyer in Albania. Ardjana is Managing Partner of AK Partners Legal & Consulting. She has acted as a lawyer, legal consultant and trainer for a number of international organizations (for example, NGOs and development agencies), as well as foreign embassies, international consulting groups, Fortune listed companies and academic institutions.
For many years Ardjana has been a lecturer and trainer at the School of Magistrates in Albania. She has authored many legal articles which have been published in domestic and foreign publications and has co-authored three legal books. For several years Ardjana was an IFLR1000 Highly Regarded Lawyer and the Designated Legal Counsel of the Austrian Embassy in Tirana.
Throughout her professional career Ardjana has been involved in gender matters; she has advocated for legal rights for women and in particular for their economic empowerment. To this end she has also served as a board member of organizations and projects focused on gender equality rights and other gender issues. She has also used her involvement in the visual arts as a mean to promote the rights of women. Ardjana aims to be a role model to women in Albania.
Ardjana holds an incorporated LLM from the Law Faculty of Tirana University. She also holds a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from Tirana University and Nebraska University (USA).
Lejla Konjic Dragovic has held various positions during her career within the judicial system in Bosnia and Herzegovina. She has been a judge since 2010 and has worked on all types of criminal cases, including breaches of human rights. She is an educator at the Centre for Education of Judges and Prosecutors in Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and is a certified Council of Europe trainer.
She has been a member of various working groups on different topics in connection with gender-based violence, including domestic violence, the criminal offence of rape, and the exercise of the right to property claims, etc. She is an author and co-author of several publications in relation to, amongst other things, the criminal offences of rape and domestic violence in the judicial system. She has also written on case law in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Lejla holds a Bachelor’s from the Faculty of Law at the University of Sarajevo and also a Master’s from the University of Bologna in European Studies. Her Master’s thesis was on “Exercising the Right to a Fair Trial under Article 6 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms”. Lejla passed the Bar exam in November 2006.
Marina Naumovska has worked for more than 20 years on justice reform programmes both internationally and domestically. She served as Team Leader of the Inter-Ministerial Group for the Reform of the Judiciary and Public Administration in North Macedonia as well as Assistant (Deputy) Minister of Justice.
She has worked as a programme manager, judicial specialist, and trainer in human rights capacity development programmes which have formed part of international initiatives. Much of her work in judicial training has been under the auspices of the EU and the Council of Europe. She has worked with institutions in the Western Balkans, the Caucasus, Latvia, Portugal, Turkey, and Ukraine. She has also worked with the World Bank, OSCE and other international institutions.
Marina has authored and co-authored numerous publications, created manuals and guides on various issues related to human rights and the rule of law, and has given more than fifty training sessions to judges. Her most recent projects included benchmarking studies on the uniform application of judicial practice, best practices in judicial training systems, and performance assessments of judges based on the Council of Europe standards and the European Court on Human Rights’ jurisprudence.
Marina graduated in law from the Faculty of Law, University Ss. Cyril and Methodious, Skopje.
Mirjana Popovic is a Judge of the Court of Appeal of Montenegro and the President of the Montenegrin Association of Women Judges (MAWJ).
Mirjana started her legal career as an attorney at law, then became Judge of the Basic and High Court in Podgorica. Her courtroom experience spans more than 25 years. Since 2017 she has been a member of The Council of Europe’s Consultative Council of European Judges (CCJE) in respect of Montenegro. (The CCJE is an independent body of the Council of Europe composed exclusively of international judges.) Since 2018 Mirjana has held the position of the CCJE’s Gender Equality Rapporteur.
Her duties as the CCJE’s Gender Equality Rapporteur taken together with her duties as a judge inspired Mirjana to develop her knowledge of importance of gender equality in the judiciary – an issue which is crucial for the transparency, fairness and accountability of the judiciary. To improve gender equality integrity issues in the judiciary and raise awareness of gender equality in general, in February 2023, Mirjana initiated and established the first-ever Montenegrin Association of Women Judges (MAWJ).
Mirjana graduated from the Law Faculty of the University of Podgorica and passed the Montenegrin Bar exam.
Brankica Jankovic has been Commissioner for the Protection of Equality of the Republic of Serbia having been elected to the role by the National Assembly in 2015 and 2020. From 2012-2014 she was State Secretary in the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Policy. Before that she was Director of the Gerontology Center Belgrade.
Brankica has been a member of the Gerontological Society of Serbia for the past 15 years. This has involved her in the protection of human rights of senior citizens. She has also been a volunteer with the Red Cross of Serbia and an honorary member of the Bel Hospice Club for palliative care. She has been a member of various professional and expert associations in the field of social protection.
Brankica has been involved in the drafting of various national strategic and legal documents and has published numerous professional papers and publications on the subject of the rights of senior citizens and women, and especially the fight against gender-based violence. Brankica has received multiple awards for her work, including “Contribution of the Year to Europe” for 2018 and the OSCE “Person of the Year” award for 2017.
She graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Belgrade, completed her Master’s at the Faculty of Law at the University of Novi Sad and is a doctoral student at the Faculty of Security in Belgrade.
