Dear Colleagues,
2020 will be another crucial year for IAJ. While celebrating our 67th anniversary and before holding our 63rd annual world meeting in San José (Costa Rica), we’ll be focusing on a number of activities both at regional and global level.
Let me recall here some of the challenges we are going to face in the upcoming year.
Three working groups have to be set up and start working in 2020, according to the decisions taken in Nur-Sultan last September by the Central Council.
The first one deals with the new monitoring procedure. Very soon I’ll send a letter to the first group of 31 associations that will be scrutinized. The procedure approved by the Central Council is rather complex and needs a maximum of co-operation by national Associations. The relevant WG will be presided over by IAJ Vice-President Mikael Sjoberg; Regional Groups will have to elect two members for any Group during their spring meetings (Arlington, Asumpcion, Dakar and Porto).
The second WG will deal with possible statutory reforms of the rules of voting. It will be presided over by IAJ President Tony Pagone and will include me as one of its members. Additionally, each of the Regional Groups Presidents will have to designate very soon two members, representing the same Groups. The works will be started by the Presidency Committee during its next meeting in Verona (Italy) in June this year.
The third WG will study the problem of offering and organising assistance to individual judges who find themselves in difficult positions because of their role as judges. The IAJ PC designated as President of such Group Sir Nicholas Blake (UK) and the composition has already been approved by the same PC. It has already started its work.
Of course, more information on this activity is available both in this newsletter and in the official documents of our Organisation: minutes of the meetings, acts of conferences, resolutions, declarations, recommendations, etc., all available in our website. Visit the IAJ website
As far as the Regional Groups are concerned, they will be respectively meeting as follows:
IBA: Asumpcion (Paraguay), in April 2020
African RG: Dakar (Senegal), on 14-17 April, 2020
EAJ: Porto (Portugal), on 14-16 May, 2020
ANAO: Arlington (USA), on 18-19 May, 2020.
As usual, on the agendas of the Regional Groups, we’ll find national and continental problems affecting judicial independence, draft resolutions and other initiatives of that kind. Special attention will be devoted to the three above mentioned Working Groups, instituted by votes of the Central Council in Nur-Sultan.
The Presidency Committee will be meeting in Verona (Italy) on 5-7 June 2020. Very soon you’ll receive the four questionnaires of the Study Commissions. As usual, I ask you to kindly comply with the deadlines that will be set by the SC Presidents for sending the national reports and replies. In the part of this newsletter dedicated to the Central Council meeting in Nur-Sultan, you may find the titles of the subjects to be dealt with during this year.
In the meantime, may I wish you all the best for this 2020, hoping that it will be full of achievements in our never-ending fight for the Rule of Law and the protection of Judicial Independence all over the world.
- Giacomo Oberto Secretary-General of the IAJ