Yesterday, The European Court of Human Rights elected amongst its midst a new President, the judge in respect of Italy, Guido Raimondi. He will take office as of 1 November, succeeding current President Dean Spielmann. Judge Raimondi has been working at the Court since 2010 and before that in the early 2000s in an ad hoc capacity. He was also, amongst others, active within the ILO. He wil be the Court’s fourth president in four years – a much higher turnover than the average in the earlier decades of the Court’s history. For more background information about judge Raimondi, please see the Court’s press release. Congratulations to the new President!
On the same day two new vice-presidents were elected by the Court. As of 1 November, these will be: Işıl Karakaş
(judge in respect of Turkey) and András Sajó (judge in respect of Hungary). In addition, two new section presidents were elected: Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska (judge in respect of Macedonia) and Angelika
Nußberger (judge in respect of Germany). All of this taken together means that the Court will have an almost entirely new top layer, due to many experienced judges’ mandates terminating. The institutional memory is of course also guarded by the registry, but to maintain a balance between judges and registry, this poses new challenges.
And something completely different: partly ECHR-related, event is a conference organized bon 22-23 October in Poland on ‘Damages for violations of human rights – domestic, comparative and international perspectives’. More info, also on participating, can be found here.
