The French Conseil National de Barreaux (CNB) and the Council of Europe’s HELP Programme, in collaboration with the École National de la Magistrature (ENM), organised a double kick-off of the courses on Data Protection and Privacy Rights and Business and Human Rights. The event took place in CNB’s new headquarters in Paris on 9 March 2018.
This double launch was opened by Marie Compère, magistrate of the international department of the ENM and HELP focal point in France, who highlighted the advantages of this pan-European Programme, the key role of lawyers in the justice chain and some challenges to effectively operationalise European and international standards, particularly linguistic barriers and the co-existence of different legal systems in the continent.
Following a presentation of the HELP Programme, the tutors focused on the two above-mentioned courses.
Jean-Luc Sauron, Conseiller d’État and national tutor of the first edition of the HELP course on Data Protection and Privacy Rights, explained the course, underlining the advantage of regrouping the Council of Europe and European Union (EU) systems. The course will help lawyers identifying violations and apply remedies in specific areas of data protection and privacy rights. It therefore aims at protecting individuals from violations, which in the current digital area, may come from both private and public actors. The course covers in an interactive way the key concepts, the legal framework of the Council of Europe including its Convention 108 and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (coming into force in May 2018) as well as the case law or the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) and of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). One of the key reference materials to develop this course has been the Handbook on Data Protection developed jointly by the EU Fundamental Rights Agency and the Council of Europe together with the Registry of the Court. Some thematic areas covered are media, medical data, e-communication, modern technologies (i.e., GPS, CCTV, drones) and privacy at the workplace.
It has to be mentioned that alongside the French lawyers (some of whom are accredited to work in other EU countries), two participants selected by the Moroccan Data Protection Authority attended the event, the latter in anticipation of the HELP component under the upcoming EU-funded Programme South Mediterranean II to be implemented by the Council of Europe.
Josquin LEGRAND, CNB’s lawyer presented the HELP course on Business and Human Rights. The course covers the 2011 United Nations Guiding Principles (UNGP) as well as the Council of Europe’s action, which is becoming stronger thanks to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the European Committee on Social and Economic Rights as well as the adoption of the Recommendation CM/Rec(2016)3 on human rights and business by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. Building on the "protect, respect and remedy" framework, the Recommendation underlines the importance of ensuring effective remedies and targeting vulnerable groups such as children or indigenous peoples.
Participants (mainly lawyers and experts in the field) have high expectations on how to practically implement the standards regarding the topics of personal data and business and human rights.
Model courses in English and French are available in the HELP e-learning platform online.
Following the piloting of both courses, they will become available online in the HELP e-learning platform in summer 2018.
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