PATFox featured at European Young Bar Association AGM

EYBA is a non-profit association which brings together young legal professionals across the Council of Europe region. In 2018, the EYBA was granted participatory status at the Council of Europe’s Conference of International Non-Governmental Organisations, meaning that its input is sought on policy issues where the Council of Europe is active.

Reaching early-career legal professionals is a key objective for the PATFox team, so we were thrilled to be asked to give a presentation about the project ahead of EYBA’s AGM, which this year was held on the premises of the Bar Council of England and Wales, in central London.

Following presentations from the incoming Chair of the Bar Council of England and Wales Sam Townend KC and Michael Harwood, Chair of the Young Barristers’ Committee, Naomi Colvin from Blueprint for Free Speech introduced the issue of SLAPPs, legislation being introduced in the UK and EU and, finally, PATFox’s curriculum creation and training workshops held across 11 EU member states.

On Friday 6 October at 1pm CET, PATFox and the EYBA are running a lunchtime seminar on SLAPPs: Everything you need to know, which will include contributions from project coordinator Alessia Schiavon; Professor Justin Borg-Barthet, convenor of the University of Aberdeen’s new Anti-SLAPP Hub and independent journalist Marco Bras dos Santos.

In December last year, Marco was convicted of trespass and fined following a criminal compliant from a mining company, whose site had been the location of a protest Marco had reported on. Marco’s appeal is now pending at Germany’s Constitutional Court.