Programme

Filoxenia Conference Centre

Nicosia, 28 April 2017

Biographies

Mr Myron Nicolatos

President of the Supreme Court of Cyprus

Myron Nicolatos was born in Larnaca-Cyprus in October 1952.  He is the son and grandson of distinguished Larnaca Lawyers. He studied law at the London School of Economics (University of London) and he was awarded the degrees of LL.B. (Hounours) and LL.M..  He is also a Barrister of the Middle Temple.

He practised Law between 1979 and 1986 and he was appointed District Judge in 1986, promoted to President District Court in 1996.  Since the 1st of December 2004 he is a  Justice of the Supreme Court of Cyprus and since the 25th of July 2014 he is the President of the Supreme Court.

He is Member of the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe for about ten years.

He is, ex officio, Member of the Supreme Council of Judicature of Cyprus (High Council for the Judiciary), since 2004, and its President, since 2014.

He has made studies and speeches on the independence of the Judiciary, the Rule of Law, Judicial behaviour and other Legal and Constitutional topics.

He served as elected President of the Judges´ Union of Cyprus between 2003 and 2004.

He speaks Greek and English and he has knowledge of Portuguese and French.

He is married, and the father of two daughters, Daphne and Sophia, both lawyers.

Mr Jan Kleijssen

Director, Information Society and Action against Crime Directorate, Council of Europe

Jan Kleijssen was born in 1958 in Almelo (The Netherlands). He studied International Law at Utrecht State University (LLM in 1981) and International Affairs at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, Ottawa (MA 1982).

Jan joined the Council of Europe in 1983 as a Lawyer with the European Commission of Human Rights. He was Secretary to the Parliamentary Assembly’s Political Affairs Committee from 1990 to 1999.  Jan then served as Director of the Secretary General's Private Office and afterwards as Director and Special Advisor to the President of the Parliamentary Assembly

Jan is currently the Director of Information Society and Action against Crime, Directorate General Human Rights and Rule of Law, of the Council of Europe.

His Directorate carries out standard-setting, monitoring and co-operation activities on a wide variety of issues, including:

• Freedom of expression
• Data protection
• Internet governance
• Cybercrime
• Terrorism
• Criminal law
• Fighting corruption and money laundering
• Action against drug trafficking and drug abuse

Jan was appointed Chair of the Council of Europe’s Disciplinary Board in December 2015.

He takes a great interest in history and cinema and is also a keen marathon runner.

Besides his mother tongue Dutch, Jan is fully fluent in English, French, German and Italian.

Jan is the author of several publications in the field of human rights and international relations.  The forthcoming edition of the Netherlands Yearbook on International Law will feature his article on “Cybercrime, evidence and territoriality:  issues and options”.

Twitter: @JKleijssen

Mr Ionas Nicolaou

Minister of Justice and Public Order of Cyprus

Born in Geri, Nicosia District, on 21 January 1963. Married to Maria Kinani; has two daughters. Lawyer.

PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITIES

At the parliamentary elections of 27 May 2001 he was elected Member of the House of Representatives standing as a DISY candidate in Nicosia and was re-elected at the parliamentary elections of 21 May 2006 and again on the 22nd May 2011.

He was chairman of the House Standing Committee on Legal Affairs and a member of the House Standing Committee on Internal Affairs from June 2004 up to February 2013.

He was a member of the House Standing Committee on Crime and on the Fight Against Drugs and Addictive Substances, and a member of the House Standing Committee on Labour and Social Insurance

POLITICAL - SOCIAL ACTIVITIES

He was a founding and active member of the Youth Organisation of DISY (NEDISY), an active member of the high school students section and president of the high school students council of NEDISY (1979-1980). During his studies at university in Greece he was a founding member of the “Protoporia” Cypriot Students Movement and a member of the movement’s councils (1982-1985). He was also the student representative at the board of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Law School and a member of the National Union of Cypriot Students in Thessaloniki. In 1986 he was elected member of the Steering Committee of NEDISY and played a leading part in the establishment of the High School Student Movement.

He was an elected member of the District Executive Secretariat of DISY in Nicosia. In 1990 he was elected to the post of departmental organisations secretary and in 1993 to the post of district organisational secretary. From 1999 to 2003 he was district secretary of DISY in Nicosia.
He was a member of the board of the Cyprus Grain Commission (1995-1998) and vice-chairman of the board of the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (1998-2001).

He participated in specialised seminars on liberalising the energy market, on competition, on strategic planning and on restructuring and developing of monopoly markets in Cyprus. He is the commissioner for Justice and Public Order of DISY, a member of the party Political Bureau’s Commissioners Council and a member of the Supreme Council of the party.

He is vice-president of DISY.

He also participates on behalf of the House of Representatives in the interparliamentary Assembly of Western European Union.

Today he is the Minister of Justice and Public Order.

Publications

He has published articles in the daily press and studies in scientific journals in Cyprus and abroad.

STUDIES

Law (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) and postgraduate studies in London in European Union matters relating to harmonization with the acquis communautaire and to the liberalisation of monopoly markets.

FOREIGN LANGUAGES

English.

Mr Jean-Marc Sauvé

Vice-President of the Conseil d’Etat of France

Mr. Sauvé has been vice-president of the Conseil d’Etat since 2006. He is also president of the panel set up by article 255 of the TFUE, in charge of giving advice on candidates' suitability to perform the duties of EU judges.

In 1977, after he graduated from the Ecole nationale d’Administration, Mr. Sauvé was appointed to the Conseil d’Etat. In 1981, he became an assistant to the Minister of Justice and then held senior positions in the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of the Interior. From 1995 to 2006, he was Secretary General of the Cabinet Office.

Maria Giannakaki

Secretary General for Transparency and Human Rights – Greek Ministry of Justice, Transparency and Human Rights

Maria Giannakaki, born and raised in Piraeus, studied Classical Philology and Political Science at the University of Athens. She continued with her postgraduate studies in Paris (DEA in History of Art, University of Sorbonne, and DEUG in Cultural Management, Paris IX-Dauphine) and holds a Masters II degree in Human Rights from the Robert Schumann University in Strasbourg. In 2000, she was admitted to the National School of Public Administration, Department of Communication Advisers and Attachés and started her career in public administration. Served at the Permanent Delegation of Greece to the Council of Europe and the European Parliament between 2004 and 2009, with responsibilities for press, communication and culture.  From 2002 to 2012, she represented Greece in dozens of European Union and Council of Europe committees, with a focus freedom of speech, human rights and audiovisual media.

Ms Giannakaki was elected MP in 2012. She has been a member of PACE and of its Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination and was also elected General Rapporteur on combating racism and intolerance.

In December 2016, she was appointed Secretary General for Transparency and Human Rights of the Hellenic Ministry of Justice, Transparency and Human Rights.

Mr George Nicolaou

Former ECtHR Judge and Former Justice of the Supreme Court of Cyprus

Mr George Nicolaou read law in England and, in 1968, was called to the Bar by Lincoln’s Inn. After post-final training as barrister in London and subsequent pupilage in Cyprus, he set up practice as an advocate.

He was appointed District Court judge in 1978, Senior District Court judge in 1988 and District Court President in 1989. He served as President of the Assize Court and administrative President of the District Court of Limassol and the District Court of Nicosia.

In April 1995, Mr Nicolaou was appointed Justice of the Supreme Court of Cyprus. He held the post until early 2008 when he took office as Judge of the European Court of Human Rights. He served until April 2016.

Mr Nicolaou was made an honorary Bencher of Lincoln’s Inn in 2013.

Mr Pavlo Pushkar

Council of Europe Department for the Execution of Judgments of the ECtHR

Mr Pavlo Pushkar is a Head of Division at the Department for the Execution of Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, Directorate General of Human Rights and the Rule of Law of the Council of Europe. He started his work at the Council of Europe in 2002 as a lawyer at the Registry of the European Court of Human Rights. Before that he practiced law in Ukraine as an advocate and worked in public service at the Supreme Court of Ukraine. He is a graduate of the Kyiv Taras Shevchenko National University, the Nottingham University School of Law, Rene Cassin International Institute of Human Rights and the Queens Mary College University of London. He has a PhD in criminal justice and is pursuing doctoral research on successful international dispute settlement with the Max Planck Institute in Luxembourg.

Mr Matthias Traimer

Bureau of the Council of Europe Steering Committee on Media and Information Society

Mr Matthias Traimer is a Director of the Department Media Law and Information Society of the Constitutional Service of the Federal Chancellery, University teacher for Public, European and Communication Law at various Austrian universities and the Europe University Viadrina Frankfurt/Oder. Mr. Traimer is also a Member of the Austrian Board of the Research Institute concerning the Law of Electronic Media. Mr Traimer holds a degree in Law (Dr. iur.).

Ms Monica Horten

Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics & Political Science

Dr Monica Horten is  an independent consultant and author on Internet governance policy. She is a  Visiting Fellow, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and  holds a PhD from the University of Westminster in the field of communications policy. She has published several academic papers and three books, the  latest one entitled “The Closing of the Net” (Polity 2016).

Monica Horten  has served as a Council of Europe expert on the Programmatic Co-operation Framework for Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. She was a member of the  Committee of Experts on Trans-boundary Flow of Internet and Internet Freedom (MSI-INT). She has provided training  for government stakeholders in EU Association countries  under UN and  EU - funded projects, and authored a paper for the Center for Democracy and Technology on intermediary liability. She has  participated in European expert groups, her work has been  presented at seminars in  in the European Parliament,  and she  has assisted  policy-makers and stakeholders on various initiatives concerning the Internet.

Ms Silvia Grundmann (moderator)

Head of Media and Internet Division, Council of Europe

Ms Silvia Grundmann works for the Council of Europe in Strasbourg as Head of the Media and Internet Division. She holds both German law degrees with distinction, a Master of Common Law from Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. and she passed the New York State Bar Exam. For her PhD thesis she analysed competition laws. Silvia worked as a lawyer in private practice in Brussels, Washington D.C. and Düsseldorf and thereafter as a judge and professor at a University of Applied Sciences in Northern Germany until 2004, when she joined the Council of Europe’s department for the execution of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. She then worked as an advisor for two Council of Europe’s Commissioners for Human Rights prior to her current function.

Ms Ineta Ziemele

Former ECtHR Judge and Justice of the Constitutional Court of Latvia

Ms Ineta Ziemele served as Judge of the European Court of Human Rights from 2005 until 2014. In 2012, she was elected as President of a Chamber of the Court and chaired the Committee on the Status of Judges. Since January 2015 she has been Justice of the Latvian Constitutional Court. She is professor of international law at the Riga Graduate School of Law. She holds a law degree from the University of Latvia, a Master’s Degree in law from the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of the University of Lund, a post-graduate studies degree in law and political science from Aarhus University, and a PhD from Cambridge University.

Ineta Ziemele has co-authored and edited numerous books and articles on international law and human rights in Latvia and abroad. In 2001, she established an international legal journal – the Baltic Yearbook of International Law – and continues to be its editor-in-chief. Ineta Ziemele has been a member of the Commission of Strategic Analysis under the Auspices of the President of Latvia and of the Committee of Experts on Constitutional Law established by the President. She has served as an expert in numerous international forums such as the European Commission E-health expert group and a group of experts on the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Since 2010 she has been included on the list of experts of the Latvian Academy of Science, and since 2012 – she is a member of the Research Council of the European University Institute.

Mr Maciej Szpunar

Court of Justice of the European Union, Advocate General

Born 1971; degrees in law from the University of Silesia and the College of Europe, Bruges; Doctor of Law (2000); habilitated Doctor in Legal Science (2009); Professor of Law (2013); Visiting Scholar at Jesus College, Cambridge (1998), the University of Liège (1999) and the European University Institute, Florence (2003); lawyer (2001-08), member of the Committee for Private International Law of the Civil Law Codification Commission under the Ministry of Justice (2001-08); member of the Board of Trustees of the Academy of European Law, Trier (from 2008); member of the Research Group on Existing EC Private Law (‘Acquis Group') (from 2006); Undersecretary of State in the Office of the Committee for European Integration (2008-09), then in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2010-13); Vice-Chairman of the Scientific Board of the Institute of Justice; Agent of the Polish Government in a large number of cases before the European Union judicature; Head of the Polish delegation at the negotiations on the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union; member of the editorial board of a number of legal journals; author of numerous publications in the fields of European law and private international law; Advocate General at the Court of Justice since 23 October 2013.

Mr Arnd Haller

Google, Legal Director (D/A/CH/Be/Ne/Lux/Nordics)

Dr. Arnd Haller is legal director at Google. He has been working as a legal counsel for the company since 2005 and is currently responsible for the legal affairs of Google in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Benelux region and Scandinavia. He is a member of the Central Management Team. Arnd also serves as Google´s youth protection officer in Germany and is board member of the search engine for kids FragFinn (fragfinn.de).

Mr Haller is admitted to the bar and has several years of experience at the international Firm Taylor Wessing in Hamburg, advising clients from media, IT and Internet industries. He studied law in Würzburg, Münster, Hamburg and Granada (Spain) and graduated from the Law Faculty of the University of Münster. He completed research projects in Buenos Aires (Argentina), and traineeships at the Higher Regional Court of Lübeck, the German Embassy in La Paz (Bolivia) and the Council of the European Union in New York (USA).

Ms Karmen Turk

Media law attorney

Karmen Turk (mag iur) is a litigation attorney and partner at Triniti Law Firm, with expertise in human rights, intellectual property and media law in Estonia and beyond. She has represented clients at the European Court of Human Rights (including in Delfi AS v Estonia) as well as the Court of Justice of the European Court. She is a visiting lecturer in IT Law at the University of Tartu on intellectual property and human rights in the information society. She is also doing her PhD and researching issues regarding internet governance and civil liability of different actors on the internet.

Karmen Turk has served as an expert in a variety of Council of Europe Expert Committees. She is currently Vice-Chair of the Expert Committee on internet intermediaries and expert for the European Union and Council of Europe Programmatic Cooperation Framework for Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus with respect to the training of judges and prosecutors on issues related to the rule of law in the online environment. Within the framework of the UN Internet Governance Forum, she is co-coordinating the Dynamic Coalition of Freedom of Expression and Media on the Internet.

Mr Wolfgang Schulz (moderator)

Chair of the Council of Europe Committee of Experts on internet intermediaries

Prof. Wolfgang Schulz has been a lecturer in the field of information and communication at the law faculty of the University of Hamburg since 1997. He was appointed Professor for «Media Law and Public Law including Theoretical Foundations” in November 2011.

Since July 2001, Prof. Schulz has been a member of the directorate of the Hans-Bredow Insitute for Media Research at the University of Hamburg. He is also Research Director of the Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society in Berlin. The focus of his work has been on regulation of media content, regulation of new media, and questions regarding the legal basis of new communication media, specifically digital television. He also works on legal instruments of the state, such as with regards to ‘regulated self-regulation’. Wolfgang Schulz is a member of the Committee of Experts on Internet Intermediaries (MSI-NET) of the Council of Europe and a member of the Committee of Experts ‘Communication and Information’ and of the Advisory Board ‘Diversity of Cultural Forms of Expression’ of the German UNESCO-Commission.

Mr Robert Spano

Judge of the European Court of Human Rights

Mr Robert Spano is a Judge of the European Court of Human rights elected with respect of Iceland. His term of office began on 1 November 2013. Before being elected, Judge Spano served provisionally as Parliamentary Ombudsman of Iceland and Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Iceland. He was a member of the European Committee on Crime Problems and an Independent Expert to the Lanzarote Committee of the Council of Europe. He also served as Chairman of the Standing Committee of Experts on Criminal Law of the Icelandic Ministry of Justice. Judge Spano is a graduate of Oxford University.

Mr David Anderson

Former United Kingdom Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation

Mr David Anderson QC practises from London in EU, human rights and public law.  From 2011-17 he served as the UK’s Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation.  From 2002 to 2004 he monitored the freedom of expression for the Secretary General of the Council of Europe in Russia, Ukraine, Georgia and Turkey.  David is a Judge of the Courts of Appeal of Guernsey and Jersey, and a Visiting Professor at King’s College London.  He can be followed on twitter @bricksilk.

Mr David Diaz - Jogeix

Director of Programmes, Article 19

Based in London as Director of Programmes at Article 19 since August 2013, Mr David Diaz – Jogeix is responsible for the programmatic work of the organisation, particularly for ECA, MENA and Asia-Pacific region, as well as research and campaigns. He has an extensive human rights professional experience, particularly in post-conflict and countries in transition, having worked for major intergovernmental organisations (OSCE, Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights, EU) and international NGOs (Amnesty International and Article 19) with living and working experience in a range of regions, including the Balkans (Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia), and west (Burkina Faso) and east Africa (Rwanda).

Ms Flutura Kusari

Legal Advisor at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)

Ms Flutura Kusari is a Legal Advisor at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom. She is a media lawyer and in charge of the Legal Support Program that provides legal assistance to free speech activists and organisations working throughout Europe. Flutura is particularly specialised in whistleblowing, the protection of sources, access to public documents and self-regulation. She previously worked for the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Kosovo as a legal advisor, where she advised investigative journalists on legal issues. She is also a former member of the Kosovo Press Council (self-regulatory body), where she served for four years. Flutura holds a Bachelor of Laws from Prishtina University, Master of Laws from Queen Mary University of London and is currently pursuing doctoral studies at Ghent University.

Mr Allon Bar

Independent Consultant

Mr Allon Bar is an independent consultant, specializing in ethical and user-centric technology. Mr Bar has worked with tech companies, civil society and governments on making technology respectful of human rights. As the Policy and Engagement Manager of the Ranking Digital Rights project, he evaluated global tech companies on privacy and freedom of expression policies. Mr Bar also worked for the United Nations, civil society organizations around the world, as well as for the Dutch government. As a Fulbright scholar, he obtained a Master of International Affairs degree, with a focus on human rights, at Columbia University. Mr Bar further holds a BA degree in Language and Culture Studies and an MA degree in History of International Relations from Utrecht University

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