Friends of the Slynn Foundation

Friends of The Slynn Foundation

E- Bulletin No 13April 2016

A letter from the President

In July I shall have completed my first year as President of the Slynn Foundation. I have been involved in a great number of meetings, discussions, and conversations in person and by email to further the activities of the Foundation, as well as building on our already strong reputation.

Sir Stanley Burnton

I travelled to Tirana to participate, with Sir David Latham, Christopher Vajda and Aaron Baker, in a seminar arranged for the High Court of Albania. This gave me the opportunity to meet those with whom we work in Albania and hear directly about the difference the Foundation is making there. I was impressed with the high regard in which the Foundation and our work is held there and the strong desire for us to continue.

More recently, we have been asked to assist the Czech Republic with the reform of its judicial and legal system. I am hopeful that we shall be able to contribute substantially to this worthwhile work.

Slynn Foundation Debate 2016

This year’s event was in the form of a debate and since the motion was extremely topical – ‘Referenda are Foreign to the British Constitution’ – the event proved popular with an attendance of over 100, and was greatly enjoyed.

Chaired by Sir Patrick Elias, for the motion were myself and Peter Kellner CBE FBA and against the motion, Professor Vernon Bogdanor and Dominic Grieve MP QC. We are extremely grateful to Sir Patrick and the other speakers and to Gray’s Inn for their organisation and support. You will find more photos from the debate at the end of the E-Bulletin.

L-R:Prof Peter Bogdanor, Dominic Grieve, Sir Patrick Elias, Sir Stanley Burnton, Peter Kellner

2015 Slynn Fellowships

The two Slynn Fellows for 2015 spent a successful three months in London from September to December last year. You can read more about their visit below. Thanks are due to Marie Demetriou QC for organising their programme and to those who participated in the Fellows’ training.

Support the Foundation

Our growing reputation (and the requests for help which it has stimulated), together with the reduction in the funding now available from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office for the work we want to do in Eastern Europe (in particular), have led us to be more active in seeking other funding streams. We need to bolster our income by an extra £50,000 p.a. to meet all the requests we are now receiving. If you would like to do more to support the work of the Foundation, please see the item at the end of this Bulletin. Since the last E-Bulletin we have received some generous donations for which we are very grateful because these gifts do increase the scope of the work we can do.

With warm regards

The Rt Hon Sir Stanley Burnton

President, The Slynn Foundation

April 2015

A note from the Executive Director

Since our last Newsletter, we have continued to build on our work in Albaniaand have undertaken 12 more visits there since April last year. Our association with the Balkans continues with a further visit to Macedonia last July.We have also organised an initial scoping visit to Eritrea (funded by the FCO) which we hope will lead to project work in that country if our bid to the FCO is successful. In January, in another new venture and in co-operation with Beyond Borders Scotland, wecarried out a successful training visit to Oman. Also in relation to the Middle East and again in conjunction with Beyond Borders, we have been involved in a visit to London of a group of Bahraini judges which has led to an invitation to carry out training in Bahrain in May.More about these visits can be read below.

In 2016-17, wewill continue to work in the countries above and anticipate potential further work in Kosovo and Ukraine.

The Foundation continues to play an active part in the Board of ROLE UK and is pleased to note the huge progress that has recently been made as indicated by a positive Annual Review from DfID.We look forward to another successful year and will keeping you all informed of our progress.

Alison Fenney

Executive Director

Slynn Foundation Fellows 2015

Both the two 2015 Fellows, Ievgen Levitskyi and Anna Vlasyuk, came from large law firms in Kyiv, Ukraine, and arrived in London in September 2015. Their programme, organised by Marie Demetriou QC, was based on their personal professional expertise and preferences.

Anna spent two weeks at Brick Court Chambers, a week with The Rt Hon Lord Justice Vos, a week with The Hon Mr JusticeDingemans and the remainder of her time at Quinn Emanuel. Click hereto read Anna’s report of her time in London.

Ievgen spent three weeks at Brick Court, a week with The Rt Hon Lord Justice Vos, a week with The Hon Mr JusticeDingemans, a month at Hogan Lovells and a month at Wragge and Co. Click here to read Ievgen’s report of his time in London.⌺

Albania

The Foundation has successfully completed another busy year of its on-going project in Albania with 12 visits taking place between May2015 and March 2016.

Highlights included continuing to support the constitutional reform programme including a two-day round table for the High Court held in March this year.This covered a range of subjects including the EU Charter of Fundamental Human Rights, a description of the reference process, general practice and procedure at the Court and free movement of workers. Sir David Latham and Sir Stanley Burnton led for the Foundation and they were delighted that Christopher Vajda QC and Aaron Baker were able to join them.

The Foundation continues to support the Magistrates’ School, in

Mediation training

particular in its selection processes (Michel Aslangul) and through provision of judicial training covering judicial ethics (Employment Judge Philip Rostant), ADR and mediation training (Paul Randolph and Spenser Hilliard), EU law (David Scannell)and ECHR (Sir Henry Brooke, Jonathan Cooper and Toby Collis). As part of the work on the ECHR, this year saw the production of a Human Rights Manual in English and Albanian. Both versions are available here.

The workings of the First Instance Court of Serious Crimes of Albania was the subject of a study by Roger Venne in May last year, leading to a report setting out his suggestions for changes in the practices of the Court and its administration. It is hoped that he will be able to make a further visit to Tirana later this year.

Professional ethics training

In June, Sir Henry Brooke and Sir David Latham participated in an event to celebratethe 800th year of Magna Carta, organised by the Embassy in Tirana. Sir Henry undertook a second visit in September to assist with the judicial reform programme including speaking at an event in September in support of the justice reform effort led by previous President of Albania Alfred Moisiu. Sir David Latham spent a fortnight in Tirana in February which gave him the opportunity to undertake a series of meetings connected with the reform process as well as participating in the EU and Judicial ethics training and the High Court Seminar.

In addition, a visit to London in March was organised by the Embassy in Tirana and the Slynn Foundation for Ms DorinaZhupa,the Justice and Home Affairs Project Officer at the Embassy, in order for her to have a better understanding of the work of the Foundation. A full programme was arranged, including time spent in court, meetings with a number of Trustees, the Executive Director and former Slynn Foundation President, Sir Henry Brooke.

Ms DorinaZhupa

The Foundation is delighted to have been granted further funding from the FCO to continue its work in Albania in 2016/2017. ⌺

Bahrain

The Foundation was approached by Beyond Borders to provide assistance with a study tour they were organising to London for a group of Bahraini judges in February of this year. A number of court visits took place and seminars were provided by Sir David Keene, Sir Henry Brooke and Sir Robin Auld. Sir David and Sir Robin will now be undertaking a scoping visit to Bahrain in May and we will report further in the next E-Bulletin.

Eritrea

Following a Letter of Invitation from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sir Peter Cresswell undertook a scoping visit to Eritrea in February, with funding provided by the FCO’s Magna Partnership Fund.

A number of preliminary areas of discussion were proposed, namely:1.Discussion of laws and a court appropriate to the free port of Massawa (which will serve to attract and sustain international business).2.Meeting with legal experts in the Ministry of Justice to appraise the commercial code under revision as well as Eritrea’s maritime laws.3. Discussion of specific laws pertaining to arbitration and mediation and the settlement of disputes that may be incorporated into business agreements that Eritrea signs with foreign investors. 4. Discussion with the Law School in Asmara.

A full programme of meetings with senior judges, Ministers including the Minister of Justice and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Attorney General, the Head of the Law School in Asmara, the EU Ambassador, the FCO and others was organised to cover the matters above. Sir Peter also gave a lecture to a group of mainly 5th year students on methods of dispute resolution for disputes between individuals, companies and states. He visited the Port of Massawa and attended an event organised by the National Union of Eritrean Women (NUEW) which was also attended by a number of foreign Ambassadors andUN representatives.

Sir Peter was the first English judge to visit Eritrea in five years. His visit had been supported by SebleEphrem, a member of the Eritrean Diaspora living in England and Ruby Sandhu, an English solicitor who worked with the Law Society in the field of business and human rights and both were present at all major meetings throughout his visit.

A formal request has now been received from the Minister for Foreign Affairs for the Foundation to return to Eritrea and assist the Government’s efforts to strengthen its judicial system. It is hoped that the Foundation will be able to procure further funding from the FCO to meet this request. ⌺

Macedonia

The Foundation was asked by Centre for Legal Research and Analysis (CLRA) in Macedonia to provide experts for two projects, one developing monitoring indicators for the performance of the justice sector and the second a Jurisprudence Project – supporting the establishment of unified court practice. Following his visit in July Sir Robin Auld concluded that it would be preferable to wait until it is clearer what constitutional or other legislative reforms are to be enacted affectingthe shape and structure of the Macedonian Judicial System, before embarking on the training programmes it was proposing.⌺

Oman

In January, in a new venture for the Foundation, Sir Colin Mackay and Amanda Pinto QC visited Oman to train the judiciary on anti-corruption cases and judge-craft. The visitwas arranged in collaboration with Beyond Borders and the Bar Council and in conjunction with the FCO and the Omani Judiciary. 15 Omani judges attended from across the country and from different levels and types of court, though they were mainly criminal courts. The most senior delegate judge was the President of the Court of Appeal in Sohar and a General Assembly President. The first and last sessions were also attended by a very senior member of the judiciary.

The sessions were very lively and the audience most involved, asking questions, commenting and putting different points of view. There was a lot of discussion about the differences and the similarities between the UK and the Omani systems, in terms of overall legal systems, approaches to corruption and aspects of judge-craft.

The Foundation hopes to continue this fruitful collaboration with Beyond Borders and the Bar Council in the Middle East.⌺

Please support the Slynn Foundation

Please contact our Executive Administrator, Ruth Eldon, for further information about the Foundation and how you may be able to support us. There is an increasing demand for our work and offers to assist on projects, or financial donations, are very much appreciated. The Foundation is a charitable trust and a non-profit making company limited by guarantee. ⌺

Photos from the Slynn Debate: Referenda are Foreign to the British Constitution

held at Gray’s Inn on 11 April 2016

© The Slynn Foundation 2016

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