EWLA and the UK Law Societies Brussels Office held a conference on developing legal tools to assess and challenge member state action where women face indirect discrimination on access to justice within the remit of EU competence. For example, cuts in legal aid system, shortening the opening hours for courts or compulsory mediation may have a greater impact on women than on men when women are seeking access to justice.
The core questions included:
- What are the key identifiers in a gender-based assessment in the area of access to justice?
- What are the indicators that access to justice indirectly discriminates against one gender?
- How to prove in court that access to justice indirectly discriminates against one gender and how to develop criteria for assessing in legal cases discriminatory impact?
- How to develop the criteria for serious and persistent breaches in indirect discrimination?
Order of the day:
8:30 Breakfast
9:00-11:00 First session
- Christina Blacklaws, President, the Law Society of England and Wales
- Katharina Miller, President, EWLA
- Anna Rurka, President of the Conference of International Non-governmental Organisations of the Council of Europe
- Karen Vandekerckhove, European Commission, Head of Unit, DG JUSTICE
- Claude Cahn, Human Rights Adviser, office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
11:30- 13:30 Second session
- Maria Abrahamyan, expert at the Group of Public Monitors Implementing Supervision over the criminal-executive Institutions of the MoJ of the Republic of Armenia
- Dr Ana Vidu, University of Deusto
- Berta Alvarez Ciordia, Legal Advisor to Abogacia Espanola
For further information, please contact EWLA Eliana Zatschler or Rita Giannini from the UK Law Societies Brussels Office:
EWLA, Eliana Zatschler, eliana@zatschler.com
Rita Giannini, rita.giannini@lawsociety.org.uk
