Featured News
On Saturday, June 22nd 2019, MEDEL will hold its next Council of Administration in Prague, Czech Republic.
The previous day, Friday June 21st, in cooperation with the Prague City Hall, MEDEL and its Czech member association SOUDCOVSKÁ UNIE ČESKÉ REPUBLIKY will organize the international conference
"Increasing Psychological Resistance of a Judge",
with the following program:
The recent declarations made by the Italian Interior Minister are unacceptable and a serious breach of the Rule of Law. MEDEL has issued today a statement in that regard:
On the 23rd of May, pronounced by MEDEL as the Alert Day for the Independence of Justice in Europe, MEDEL invited to reflect on the need for an independent and effective justice all over Europe and its importance for the safeguard of European citizens’ fundamental rights and freedoms, as very dark signs have arisen all over Europe in recent years, inside and outside the European Union.
Unfortunately, few days have passed until another shocking and worrying example of the threats referred to by MEDEL came to light - the attack from the Italian Interior Minister against the judges who issued decisions on the matter of international protection of asylum-seekers and migrants.
Unión Progresista de Fiscales, the Spanish Prosecutor's association member of MEDEL, has awarded last saturday the Jesus Vicente Chamorro prize to Murat Arslan, president of YARSAV, in the closing dinner of the annual Congress, in the presence of the Spanish General Prosecutor.
The prize is awarded every year to a personality who has excelled in the promotion and defense of Human Rights.
As a way of reaffirming our solidarity, our Polish member association, Iustitia, has made a video with images of detentions in Turkish courts after the coup in Turkey and with judges and prosecutors from all over Europe, reading some of the letters.
Marking the date of Giovanni Falcone’s assassination by the Mafia in 1992, MEDEL pronounced the 23rd of May as the alert day for the independence of justice in Europe. On this date, we are invited to reflect on the need for an independent and effective justice all over Europe and its importance for the safeguard of European citizens’ fundamental rights and freedoms.
Very dark signs have arisen all over Europe in recent years, inside and outside the European Union. However, in no place as in Turkey did we witness such an orchestrated and premeditated campaign to completely destroy the independence of the Judiciary and the Rule of Law. Since the attempted Coup d’État of July 15th, 2016, all Judges, Prosecutors and Lawyers who had constantly struggled for an independent justice have been persecuted, arrested, dismissed and have seen their property seized without any previous due process and with absolutely no guarantees of defense.
Euronews, the European news network who also broadcasts in Turkish language, has just released news about MEDEL's ebook of the letters in Turkish.
Here is the link:
In the last month of March, MEDEL organized a cycle of conferences about four topics which in our view should be at the core of the debate in the electoral campaign for the upcoming European Parliament elections: immigration; populism; austerity and social rights; Rule of Law.
We gathered most of the speeches and presentations of those four conferences in the ebook that can be found HERE.
MEDEL was represented by its president today at the hearing held at the "Grande Chambre" of the European Court of Justice, in Luxembourg, on joint cases C-585/18, C-624/18 CP and C-625/18, regarding the lowering of retirement age of Polish Judges.
MEDEL was present today at the final conference of the "Rule of Law Project" of the European Judicial Training Network, held in the European Court of Justice, in Luxembourg.
The president of MEDEL was one of the facilitators of the workshop dedicated to the role of Judicial Associations in promoting the Rule of Law.
On April 3rd, 2019, the European Commission decided to launch an infringement procedure regarding the new disciplinary regime for judges in Poland.
MEDEL welcomes this decision, stressing that the mechanism of art. 258. TFUE is the only one with the effective potential to reverse the destruction of the Rule of Law in Poland.
The first call from MEDEL to take this action was addressed to the First Vice‑President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, on February 21st, 2019. Today it has become clearly evident that the unprecedented actions that have been undermining judicial independence in Poland need urgent attention.
