Autor: AEA - EAL

AEA-EAL on European Presidents Conference in Vienna

Maria Ślązak, President of the AEA-EAL, represented our Association during the 47th Conference of Presidents of European Bars, Law Societies and international organizations of lawyers. This year’s main topic was rule of law and fundamental rights.

During their stay in Vienna, the participants of the Vienna Advocates’ Deliberations are hosted by the Federal Minister of Justice and the Mayor of the City of Vienna. The fact that more than 200 participants from all parts of Europe but also representatives of international lawyers’ organizations attend the European Presidents’ Conference in Vienna, serves as a yardstick for the importance that the Vienna Advocates’ Deliberations have acquired for the legal professions over the years and even decades.

The Vienna Advocates’ Deliberations afford a most appropriate platform, not only for exchanging opinions and views, but also for filling information deficits, debating different viewpoints and developing strategies.

The European Presidents’ Conference has become a forum for dialogue, where the elected representatives of lawyers’ organizations in Europe engage in an exchange of experience. It is this principle of “informality” of the European Presidents’ Conference, together with an attractive social programme, which has proved to be successful for more than a quarter-century, without any interruption.

In addition to the traditional social programme – a welcome evening reception, a reception and gala dinner at the Palais Pallavicini, as well as the “Juristenball” (Lawyers’ Ball) at the Hofburg Palace as a splendid finale – the working session at the Palais Ferstel is at the centre of the Vienna Advocates’ Deliberations.

Strasbourg: a capital of Europe from Atlantic to Pacific?

February 27, 2019


Jean-Louis Feuerbach

Thirty years ago, the Soviet-American iron curtain collapsed under the impact of the people settled on the Amber Roads. The demackinderisation of the European continent will emerge through the German reunification, the disovietisation and the emancipation of the countries of Central Europe.

Some initial assumptions:

• The market “globalisation” exposes the incapacity of capitalism to hold its hegemony. The planet remains always bigger than them. The post-1945 standard model is disrupted.
• The hyperclass and the peoples are struggling. The capitalism has programmed its obsolescence because the costs of its reign have become exorbitant (Wolfgang Streeck).
• The orgy of the global debts hisses the end of the ball. And with it of those who command by the debt. If the global wealth has been multiplied by 26, the global public debt has been multiplied by 65. Hence the “panic of the world” (Th. Gomart).
• It is the big return of the real, politics and the classic powers. Such as Europe.
• Cuius regio, eius economia.
• At the same time, a transatlantic distance and a disavowal of the level of the Nation State have been notified.
• The political demand of the peoples fluctuates between small size but sovereign political units and political architecture of big space.

Hence these little reflections:

The Euro-Siberian continental space is squared with lines of friendship (amity lines). They correspond to the plural and millenary roads that have names of Amber Roads or Silk Roads. These are both historical and trade routes, routes of spirituality (leylines), of culture and ideas. Nothing, if not, few things hinder it. There are no natural borders. The Ural Mountains are not high enough. The space from the Atlantic Bretagne to the borders of Eastern Siberia is open, easily circulatory. The way from the Rhine to the Pacific is free. Unfortunately, the extra European powers will have ceaselessly accumulated quarrels, barriers and walls to the constitution of a solidarity confederation of peoples. It is high time to end this catastroika. Europe cannot remain an invertebrate space and rump of Globalia. Europe must erase the incapacitating anachronisms, which neutralise and humiliate it. It must think and act on its continental liberation and transcend enmities and lethal hostilities. We must make Europe by reconciling Europeans; it will be from its Eurasian core space. Just follow its rivers or accompany the network of oil and gas pipelines on its landmass and thus recover the raw materials, fossil fuels and necessary ores for the economic, technical, and therefore political project. To reunite and reassemble together the dispersed and separated European Diasporas is the challenge. The Silk Roads will be the giant gateway, which will once again connect the vast shatterbelts between Europe and India and between Europe and China. Across the steppic space and from fluvial Danubian Rhenish axises, without forgetting land communications, the western peninsula of Europe will make the giant leap forward towards Central Europe and Central Asia. From the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, along the Volga, the Baltic/Pontic axis of the Bosphorus of the Aegean Sea and from the eastern basin of the Mediterranean will be constituted. It aims to unblock the Ukrainian gateway, thus routing the Russian hydrocarbons to the West and opening up whole of Europe. Also by renewing trade relations with India and China, Europe will recover the Middle-Earth. This pacified space from the Atlantic to the Pacific must give rise to a new system of collective security. Of which Strasbourg could be the Lothringian pivot. Thus, the heirs of Charlemagne’s three sons and their brothers from Central Europe will meet again united. And the sharing of Verdun (843) will be revoked. Herewith, the peripheries will be connected again, united, reconnected to the centers. Let us never forget that without energetic supply, Europe would be geopolitically locked, padlocked and neutralised. This disarticulated marionette would only be a piece of Rimland unable to hold its axiological project, economic, societal or legal. Wanting to be at the heart of the world and this heart itself convoques to the mobilisation. Which means starting to move, getting mobilised, getting on the road and having a telos on the horizon. The right itself does not exist without territory. Any civilisation takes place on a specific organisation of space. Europe is first a land, a space, a nomos. The right is its sacred grove. The Nation State idea is no longer operative. The real of balance of power has reduced it to nothing. The rules of the game push the limits and borders. The European space needs room. The future of the political institutions as economic and technical instances passes through the conformation of the momentum to the real. However, Europe is a particular geographical area. Its right or its rights cannot be detached from the history of its Polity, from the imponderables of its geography nor from the aspirations of its peoples. Europeans must lift themselves to the height of these thresholds. To become unified beyond all the old stato-national antagonisms and to live the permanent game of anchorages, re-anchorages and pullings out involves injecting anti-production, that is, coagulating stabilisation jets (G.DeLEUZE) in the flow of flows. May the great instances located in Strasbourg play at the largest scale the role of continental converter of a dynamisor sensor of real, various and plural forces, generous and carnal, living and organic. May the networks of the AEA-EAL associate their skills to such an ethic of responsibility in a collusion of legitimacy and of historical thickness. Professor Walter LEINER considered that the triumph was grounded in a Roman idea of success and historical success, which means, something on which we can build something and on which we must raise a new dimension of adhesion, durability and greatness. Let us establish the Euro-Siberian hemisphere. Let us not forget that the goddess Europe owes its name to its great eyes that see far and wide. To be continued.

Solemn Reception of the Senegal Bar “Conférence du Stage

February 18, 2019


Jean-Pierre van Cutsem

On the invitation of the President of the Bar of Senegal, Mbaye GUEYE, our past President and Member of the Board of Directors of the European Association of Lawyers AEAEAL, Jean-Pierre van Cutsem represented our Association in the Conference of the Senegal Bar on training of lawyers. The program of the Conference included three main parts, not to mention social activities (cocktail dinners, excursions, etc.)
– Monday February 14: Welcome of participants and screening of a film about the Senegalese Bar Association
– Tuesday February 15 and Wednesday February 16 a symposium organized by the Senegalese Bar Association about Regulation No. 5/CM/UEMOA on the new skills for lawyers connected with representing clients under arrest.
– Thursday February 17 a Ceremony of “Rentrée Solennelle de La Conférence du Stage“. The Senegal Bar Association is a national bar affiliated at the Constitutional Council, the Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeal. It brings together lawyers from all over Senegal, regardless of the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeal where they are based. The headquarters of the bar is located in the capital city of Dakar. The bar was created by Act No. 84-09 of 4 January 1984, and the President of the Bar, is elected for a two-year term; he heads the bar and is assisted by the bar’s Council. As for the colloquium on Regulation No. 5/CM/UEMOA, it proved to be very informative on the role of the lawyer. First of all, it should be pointed out that UEMOA,
“Union Economique et Monétaire de l’ Ouest Africain “, groups together the countries that use the CFA as their currency, was created in 1994 and currently groups 8 West African countries, namely: Benin, Burkina Fasso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. The Bars of the UEMOA countries are gathered in the UEMOA Bar Conference currently chaired by the President of the Bar of Senegal. As in the European Union, the Regulations adopted by the WAEMU Council of Ministers are immediately applicable in the national legal systems of the various UEMOA member countries. On 25 September 2014, the UEMOA Council of Ministers adopted Regulation No. 05//CM/ UEMOA on the harmonization of the rules governing the legal profession in the UEMOA region, which entered into force on 1 January 2015. The theme of the colloquium was article 5 of these Regulations, which states: “Lawyers shall assist their clients as soon as they are arrested, during the preliminary investigation,
on police or gendarmerie premises or before the public prosecutor’s office”. It is the notion of arrest that is the subject of debate and a circular from the Minister of Justice of Senegal No. 00179 dated 11 January 2018 specifies that the notion of
arrest would encompass a broader reality than police custody and that it actually extends to all situations in which the suspect is at the disposal of the Judicial Police Officer for the purposes of an interrogation or investigation. In the course of the interventions and debates it emerged that, although the Regulation is indeed directly applicable in the domestic legal order, the implementation of the provisions of the said Regulation is more advanced in some UEMOA countries than in others; but that in any case significant progress has been made since the entry into force of the Regulation. It seems important to note that many judicial police and gendarmerie officers also participated in the seminar and therefore had the opportunity to better understand the rights of lawyers when they intervene alongside their clients from the moment they are arrested. Thursday February 16th was devoted to the “Rentrée Solennelle de la Conférence du Stage” and consisted of many speeches, including intervention of the Minister of Justice representing the President of the Republic of Senegal, President of the Bar of Senegal and his successor, Mr Papa Laïty Ndiaye, who will become President of the bar in July as well as many other speeches, including the former President of the Bar of Paris. These speeches were followed by interventions of two Secretaries of the Conference It was well-organized and very successful event. As the AEA-EAL extends to the countries of Eastern Europe and Asia, it would be important for it to also look to Africa and the lawyers of UEMOA, whose values seem very close to those of the lawyers of the European Union.

International Lawyers Day celebrated across Americas on February 3.

Countries in Latin America as well as in the United States commemorates lawyers’ contribution to the society on February 3 each year, which has been established an International Lawyers Day. This day is commemorated to recognize the hard work of lawyers, their work as rights advocates and in charged with overseeing justice. However, it is also a day to remember the duties of the lawyer as to the application of laws and justice.

Different countries have their own history and day to commemorate lawyers: Ecuador February 20, Chile May 21, Colombia June 22, Venezuela June 23, Paraguay August 2, Brazil August 11, Argentina August 29, Bolivia October 12, USA May 1 (Law Day), among others. Nevertheless, on February 3 of each year all countries commemorate the International Day of the Lawyer.

The publicity of the beneficial owner of the companies will be accentuated soon

January 25, 2019

Juan Núñez

The Fifth Directive of the European Union for the Prevention of Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism, of 30 May 2018, echoes the great concern over the recent attacks suffered (Paris, Nice, Berlin, Brussels, London, Barcelona and Cambrils), and is determined to toughen the surveillance measures, and one of them is to improve “the transparency of the companies and other legal entities, trusts (” trust “) and similar instruments”.

For this purpose, it establishes that Public Registries must have “sufficient, accurate and current” information on the beneficial ownership of the companies and allow public access to this information. It is reminded that the beneficial owner is “the individual or individuals who ultimately own or control, directly or indirectly, a percentage greater than 25% of the capital or voting rights of a legal entity or that, through agreements or statutory provisions, exercise a direct or indirect control of a corporation”. If the beneficial owner is also a corporation, the beneficial owner of this corporation shall be consigned, and the chain will continue upwards until reaching the beneficial owners who hold control in more than 25%.
The Directive emphasizes the need for the “legally bound subjects” (the companies themselves -by means of their directors-, financial entities, public registries, notaries, lawyers that provide corporate or real estate advice, real estate agents, among others) to collect and safeguard these data, maintaining them in a “sufficient, accurate and current” way.
For years, this information has already been gathered by companies, affected professionals, financial institutions and notaries.

The novelty lies in the public access to the information contained in the registers, which the Directive concludes that “it allows for greater control of information by civil society, including the press or civil society organizations” since ” The confidence of investors and the public in financial markets depends to a large extent on the existence of a rigorous disclosure regime that provides transparency regarding real ownership and the control structures of companies “.
It is also a novelty that, if there is no real ownership, because the capital is in hand of partners with smaller shareholdings, the data of the directors of the final company will be consigned.

The scope of this publicity remains to be seen, and its collateral effects can be disconcerting (all the citizens to know who is the owner of half of the city, it is a collateral effect that does not have much to do with the fight against terrorism…).
We must remember, however, the misgivings that caused the first company Directives, back in the 70s, which forced to deposit the annual accounts of the companies in the Commercial Registry.

Winter Newsletter 2018

 

Dear AEA-EAL Members,
Dear Colleagues,

Please find attached the winter issue of our Newsletter.

It was the intensive year for our Association; we organized several international conferences and events, we are boosting works of AEA-EAL Committees, including the team of young lawyers to provide new ideas and solutions for our works. Our main goal is to invite to active participation as many members as possible; members should join AEA-EAL events, cooperate with its Committees, share ideas and best practices as well as participate in creation of our media – the Newsletter, Facebook and website to cause that network of lawyers from many countries will serve to all of us to exchange knowledge and experience, to be better prepared for providing legal services.

Please read the attached Newsletter! I do hope that it will inspire you to provide information, news and articles to its next issue.

It is the end of the year again. All of us are preparing for celebration of Christmas and New Year. It is a special time we will spend with families and friends remembering all good that happened in old year and hoping for the best in the coming one.

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

AEA-EAL Team

***

Chers membres de l’AEA-EAL,
Chers collègues,

Veuillez trouver ci-joint le numéro d’hiver de notre bulletin.

C’était l’année intensive pour notre association; nous avons organisé plusieurs conférences et événements internationaux, nous stimulons les travaux des comités AEA-EAL, y compris l’équipe de jeunes avocats, afin de proposer de nouvelles idées et solutions pour nos travaux. Notre objectif principal est d’inviter à la participation active autant de membres que possible. les membres devraient participer aux événements AEA-EAL, coopérer avec ses comités, partager des idées et des pratiques optimales, ainsi que participer à la création de nos médias – le bulletin d’information, Facebook et le site Web Échanger des connaissances et des expériences pour mieux se préparer à fournir des services juridiques.

Veuillez lire le bulletin ci-joint! J’espère que cela vous incitera à fournir des informations, des nouvelles et des articles à son prochain numéro.

C’est encore la fin de l’année. Nous nous préparons tous pour la célébration de Noël et du nouvel an. C’est un moment privilégié que nous passerons avec la famille et les amis à nous rappeler de tout ce qui s’est passé de bon à la vieille année et à espérer le meilleur de la prochaine année.

Nous vous souhaitons un joyeux Noël et une bonne année!

AEA-EAL Team

EN AEA-EAL Newsletter winter 2018

PL AEA-EAL Newsletter zima 2018

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