Dear Colleagues,
The final months of 2020 were characterized by a “second wave” of the Covid-19 pandemic. This made the IAJ once again cancel and/or postpone all the meetings in person that we had hoped to be able to organise, not only last year, but also in 2021. As a matter of fact, all of them were replaced by online events. Needless to say, this kind of activity keeps all of us busy (even much busier than before), without offering the “pleasant” aspects of our usual meetings, such as the possibility to discuss de visu our common problems, to see personally how judicial issues are dealt with in other countries, to make new experiences and acquire new knowledge, while travelling around the world.
While keeping well alive our hopes that the vaccines will help us getting out of the tunnel, we try to figure out how the future—in particular the future of justice—will be after the pandemic. In this gloomy framework, maybe reading the experience of colleagues of centuries ago could be of some help. This time I would like to quote the exhortation of Bernard de La Roche Flavin (1552-1627), President of the “chambre des requêtes” of the Toulouse Court of Appeal (or “Parliament,” as those courts were called at the time), who invited the judges to render justice “without fear of anyone”, prompting colleagues to show qualities like “constancy, firmness and magnanimity in the exercise of their duties”.
In fact, when his work Treize Livres des Parlemens de France was published (1621), it sparked off a scandal. The judge was revealing to his readers all the failings, shortcomings and weaknesses of his colleagues; he was therefore submitted to what today would be a disciplinary proceeding and finally excluded from the court. But his book is still read and quoted today, four hundred years later! This gives us a lesson on the duty that we the judges have to bear witness to the truth and only to the truth, no matter how hard it can be. And this is all the more true in these difficult times.
In this moment I am thinking in particular to the moving words that, among many difficulties, we receive from our colleagues who are suffering (many of them still in prison, since years!) just for having shown their courage and independence; we published recently one of those letters (see https://www.iaj-uim.org/news/colleagues-message-from-a-turkish-prison/). We bear all of them and their families in our hearts, we don’t forget them and we committ ourselves even harder to our daily struggle for the values we believe in.
So, once again I dare to express the hope that our activities can come back to be as they were before, whereas we must keep in mind that the path back to the situation pre-Covid-19 is not simple, nor short.
By reading this newsletter you will get, as usual, an idea on what is going on at the international level, as far as subjects concerning judicial independence are concerned. As always, I am available to provide you with any additional information you might need and I invite you once again to visit our web site, which we try to keep always updated.
In the meantime, also on behalf of President Tony Pagone and of the whole Presidency Committee, I send you my best regards and wishes for a year in which the whole world leaves behind the worries related to the pandemic.
Giacomo Oberto
Secretary-General of the IAJ