Ms Yvonne ATAKORA OBUOBISA, Ghana, Director of Public Prosecutions, Ministry of Justice & Attorney-General’s Department

Yvonne Atakora Obuobisa has been the Acting Director of Public Prosecutions since April 2015. Prior to this position she was a Chief State Attorney and Head of the International Cooperation Unit of the Ministry of Justice. She has worked as a prosecutor for nineteen years and has specialized in prosecuting economic crimes including money laundering offences and cybercrime. She has trained as an assessor in the Anti-money laundering and Countering of Terrorist Financing regime for the Intergovernmental Action Group against Money Laundering and Financing of terrorism (GIABA). In 2010, she was the legal expert in the team that assessed Liberia in its AML/CFT regime. She has also gained considerable experience in handling international criminal law cases. She is a listed counsel to the International Criminal Court and a lecturer in criminal procedure at the Ghana School of Law.

Mr Rintaro KURAMOCHI, Japan, Lawyer for constitutional matters at Japan Federation of Bar Associations and lecturer for Constitutional Law at lecturer at Keio University School of Law

Rintaro Kuramochi studied constitutional law and jurisprudence at Keio University and Chuo University School of Law. He graduated from Chuo University School of Law, and got a license as a lawyer in 2011. He used to work as a business lawyer and taught constitutional law at Keio University School of Law. He gave seminars with general citizens to inform them about constitutional law. In addition , he drafted questions for Diet representatives on matters of Japanese constitutional law, especially, on Japanese security legislation during summer 2015. He was summoned by the House of Representatives as witness (as the expert on constitutional law) to give testimony about Japanese security legislation in July.

Mr Christoph PARTSCH, Germany, Lawyer specialised on freedom of information

Dr. Christoph Partsch studied law at Duke University School of Law and at Fuqua School of Business and of Law. He did his PhD on freedom of information with Professor Schmidt-Jortzig, former Minister of Justice, at Kiel University, Germany. From 1998 to 2002, he was Vice President and Legal Counsel of Holtzbrinck media group as well as Associate Director of Macmillan Ltd. London. Since 2011, Christoph Partsch is Lawyer of Confidence of the City of Berlin, an ombudsman-like position for whistleblowers in Berlin. He is currently representing the Society for Freedom of Information in a court case against the German Ministry of Justice concerning the files of the ‘netzpolitik.org’ case, concerning journalists of an online magazine who have been suspected of revealing state secrets and became subjects of a treason investigation. In addition, and among other cases, he is representing a journalist before the European Court of Human Rights concerning the question, whether journalist should be given the names of judges still active in the state of Brandenburg who have been working for the East German Secret Service

Mr Péter POLT, Hungary, Prosecutor General of Hungary

Dr. Péter Polt is Prosecutor General of Hungary and Head of Department of Criminal Law at National University of Public Service, Faculty of Law Enforcement, Institute of Criminal Sciences. Mr Polt holds a PhD in Law and Political Sciences from the Pázmány Péter Catholic University, in Budapest. In 2000 he was elected General Prosecutor of the Republic of Hungary and in 2006 Chief Counselor of the Office of the Prosecutor General of Hungary, becoming the Head of the Department for Criminal Trial Cases. Mr Polt has been very active on an international level as well, covering roles as Vice Chair of the Consultative Council of European Prosecutors at the Council of Europe (2006-2008) and President of the Network of Public Prosecutors or equivalent institutions at the Supreme Judicial Courts of the Member States of the European Union (2011 – 2012).

Mr Cédric VISART DE BOCARME, Belgium, President of the Consultative Council of European Prosecutors of the Council of Europe

Since January 2015, Mr Visart de Bocarme is President of the Consultative Council of European Prosecutors (CCPE) of the Council of Europe. In 2011, he had been appointed Head of the Private Office of the Ministry of Interior and at the end of 2012, he integrated the international section of the Federal State Crown office where he still is excising his functions as Prosecutor. Mr Visart de Bocarme  represented the Belgian public prosecution service at the Eurojustice conferences in 2005, 2006 and 2007.  He represents Belgium and is a member of the Forum of Prosecutors of the European Union since its creation in 2010. Mr Visart de Bocarme  was appointed Principal Crown Prosecutor at the Liège Court of Appeal in 2005 for a mandate of 7 years. He chaired the College of general prosecutors of Belgium from 2006 to 2009.

Mr Alexander SEGER, Germany, Head of Cybercrime Division, Council of Europe

Alexander Seger has been with the Council of Europe (Strasbourg, France) since 1999. He is Executive Secretary of the Committee of the Parties to the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime and heading the Cybercrime Programme Office of the Council of Europe (C-PROC) in Bucharest, Romania, which is responsible for global capacity building on cybercrime. Before 1999, he was with what now is the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna/Austria, Laos and Pakistan. Alexander Seger is from Germany and holds a PhD in political science, law and social anthropology after studies in Heidelberg, Bordeaux and Bonn.