On the podium (from left to right): Dr. Franca Fülle, Anne Katharina Zimmermann and Dr. Ralf Riegel, all from the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection (from left to right)
Working closely with the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection (BMJV) and the Federal Foreign Office, the IRZ organised a five-day conference as part of the "Arab Forum on Asset Recovery" (AFAR), held in Tunis from 18 to 22 May 2015. AFAR was set up as part of a G7 initiative in partnership with Arab Countries in Transition.
As part of this initiative, an Action Plan on Asset Recovery was agreed in 2012 to support Arab countries in their efforts to recover stolen or misappropriated assets from former Arab regimes. Special sessions are held annually to deal with technical issues concerning the identification and recovery of assets.
The fourth annual meeting took place in Tunisia under Germany's presidency of the G7. Arab delegations represented Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Qatar and Tunisia. The G7 states were represented by Germany, France and Great Britain. Switzerland was also represented.
Plans were developed in close coordination with the World Bank's Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative (StAR). The conference focussed in particular on asset tracing, which involves detecting assets that are being held illegally in the states concerned. The results of these "special sessions" will be taken into account at the fourth Arab Forum to be held in November 2015.
Minister of Justice, Mr Mohamed Saleh Ben Issa; Rachid Sabbagh, Minister of Defence, ret., Honorary President of the Administrative Court and President of the Court of Cassation, ret.; Patrick Schneider, IRZ (left to right)
On 7 and 8 April 2015 the IRZ organised a conference in Tunis on the subject of "The High Judicial Council and the Independence of the Judiciary". The establishment of a Judicial Council is one of the central topics in the Tunisian debate about the reform of the judicial system. The draft laws submitted by various institutions and stakeholders were discussed very intensively during recent years.
Large parts of the judiciary consider the greatest possible autonomy of the Judicial Council and the self-administration of the judiciary as an opportunity to learn lessons from Tunisia's authoritarian past and to create a genuinely independent judiciary.
The Ministry of Justice takes a different position. Its view is that ensuring the independence of the judiciary at all costs does not mean that all competences will and should be withdrawn from the Ministry. The controversial background to this process ensured meaningful and lively discussions and met with great interest above all from the Tunisian judiciary and Parliament.
The Tunisian Minister of Justice, Mohamed Saleh Ben Issa, who has only been in office for a short time, opened the two-day conference with rather critical words. The conference was covered by numerous media representatives from television, radio and the press (Al Jazeera, etc.). The agenda included presentations and discussions with regard to the following topics, among other things:
constitutional provisions and the independence of the judiciary,
tasks and composition of the High Judicial Council,
self-administration of the judiciary,
control of the judiciary under disciplinary law,
remuneration.
The views of the Tunisian contributors were always supplemented with presentations by two German judges about the situation in Germany in terms of comparative law and by contributions to the discussion regarding the pros and cons of specific regulations.
The IRZ will continue its cooperation with the Tunisian administrative courts in 2015 with expert seminars and conferences in Tunis. What is more, the IRZ will offer Tunisian administrative and constitutional judges study trips to attend expert talks and benefit from exchanges of opinion with their counterparts at the German Federal Administrative and Constitutional Courts this year.
Welcome address by Ms Nejiba Rouissi, Advocate-General to the judicial agencies, Ministry of Justice and Human Rights of Tunisia in charge of international matters of family law
Encouraged by the positive experience of last year, the IRZ organised a follow-up conference on "Cross-border Cooperation in Civil and Commercial Matters pursuant to the Hague Conventions" in Tunis on 13 to 14 November 2014 following the conference in Rabat/Morocco in cooperation with the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference.
The event was opened by Ms Nejiba Rouissi, Advocate-General to the judicial agencies, Ministry of Justice and Human Rights of Tunisia in charge of international matters of family law, the Secretary General of the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference, Dr Christophe Bernasconi, and the IRZ's Legal Adviser for North Africa and Middle East, Mr Mohamed Montasser Abidi.
During the two-day conference, approximately 30 participants from the Tunisian judiciary discussed, among other themes, the issues "Electronic Apostille Pilot Program (e-APP)", "Malta Process" and "Cross-frontier Child Protection" pursuant to the Hague Convention" presented by three speakers of the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference.
Several Tunisian speakers furthermore gave presentations on "Cross-border Family Law Disputes" and "Acknowledgement and Enforcement of Foreign Judgements in Tunisia".
The IRZ had also invited a representative from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Bahrain, who reported about the experiences of his country with the electronic apostille procedure.
The conference was another good opportunity for the IRZ to highlight the advantages of a ratification of the Hague Conventions in an open dialogue together with the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference. Taking into account current events, this appears to be very promising since we are pleased to report that Tunisia acceded to the Hague Conference on 4 November 2014.
On the podium (from left to right): Dr. Franca Fülle, Anne Katharina Zimmermann and Dr. Ralf Riegel, all from the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection (from left to right)
