European Young Bar Association conference in Turin hears IBA and CCBE presidents urging greater protections for lawyers
Leading lawyers have called upon national governments to ratify the landmark international Convention for the Protection of the Profession of Lawyer, warning that legal professionals are at risk.
The calls came at the European Young Bar Association’s conference in Turin, Italy, this weekend, which was opened by Chiara Palombi and Simona Grabbi, presidents of the EYBA and the Turin Bar Association, among others.
They included Enrico Maggiora of the Fondazione Fulvio Croce, a charity set up to honour a senior Turin lawyer assassinated by the Red Brigades in the 1970’s; Roman Zavrsek, a Slovenian lawyer who currently leads the CCBE, the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe; and Italian lawyer Claudio Visco, the current president of the International Bar Association.
They explained what their organisations were doing to safeguard lawyers, and thanked the EYBA, which has passed resolutions in support of the Istanbul Bar Association, which was previously prosecuted by the Turkish state for alleged violations of national security laws – actions condemned by the IBA and CCBE.
Visco outlined the IBA’s response to political attacks on the rule of law, highlighting the need for organisations to defend the principles of international law.
The IBA took action to protect the ICC and its officials from US sanctions and collaborated with Denmark’s Ministry of Education and the Danish Bar Association on a pilot programme to educate high school students about the rule of law, to be showcased at October’s conference in Copenhagen. It also supported a young lawyers’ programme in Salzburg, where global lawyers discussed and passed a rule-of-law resolution.
The conference addressed the ratification of the convention in a session led by Barbara Porta from the CCBE HR Committee and Professor Gustavo Minervini of the University of Turin, with Daniela Giraudo of the CNF (Italian National Bar Council) as moderator.
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IBA, CCBE, Law Society repeat calls for states to stand up for the rule of law and justice
