For three days, judges, prosecutors, solicitors and barristers deliberated and trained at the UG Faculty of Law and Administration as part of the European Commission-funded project TRIIAL - TRust, Independence, Impartiality and Accountability.
Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Gdańsk was one of the main partners in the project, alongside outstanding European academic centres, i.e. the European University Institute (EUI), University of Maastricht (UM), The Hague University of Applied Sciences (THUAS), among others.
A conference organised from May 18 to 20 this year and a training course were the concluding and closing events of the WPiA's participation in TRIIAL. On the part of the University of Gdańsk, the project was attended by dr hab. Tomasz T. Koncewicz, prof. UG from the Department of European Law and Comparative Legal Studies and head of the TRIIAL Project, and members of the TRIIAL team, dr Anna Podolska from the Department of Human Rights and Intellectual Property Law and dr Marcin Michalak from the Department of European Law and Comparative Legal Studies.
Over the two years of the project's duration, the Gdańsk-based TRIIAL team has co-produced a number of events with a European and international dimension devoted to the issue of trust in the judiciary, as well as the independence, impartiality and responsibility of legal professionals. The results of the research will be presented in a specially prepared Report to be published as part of the prestigious Working Papers series published by the Robert Schumann Center for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute.
The closing event of the project consisted of two parts: a conference and a workshop. It was devoted to the role of lawyers in ensuring respect for the rule of law and interpretation, and to the evolving understanding of the independence, independence and accountability of judges and the principle of mutual trust. The conference was opened by prof. Krzysztof Piotr Bielawski, Vice-Rector for Innovation and Liaison with Business and the Community. In the conference part, prominent representatives of the doctrine of European and international law and judges of the highest national courts presented their reflections on supranational standards of legal protection and judicial independence and independence. In a specially organised panel, representatives of the legal profession and NGOs discussed the challenges facing lawyers in ensuring that the rule of law remains the cornerstone of the democratic state of law, the European community of law and a point of reference for every lawyer.
In turn, in the training part led by prof. Maciej Taborowski, from INP PAN and TRIIAL members dr. Anna Podolska and dr Marcin Michalak from WPIA UG, judges, lawyers and prosecutors had the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the latest jurisprudence of supranational courts with regard to ensuring judicial independence and independence and to learn about mechanisms, tools and procedures aimed at ensuring compliance with the rule of law offered by European law.
The conference and workshop were held under the patronage of the Polish Judges' Association JUSTITIA.