Informal Meeting of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers (part justice)

The Informal Meeting of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers will be held in Prague on 11^th and 12^th July 2022. The Ministers for Home Affairs will meet on 11^th July, the Justice Ministers will meet on 12^th July.

One of the privileges of the Presidency is to organize an informal meeting of ministers in order to discuss various topics. The Ministry of Justice, together with the Ministry of Interior, will hold such a meeting in July at the beginning of the Czech Presidency. The judicial part of the Informal Meeting of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers will focus on the investigation of war crimes committed during the Russian aggression in Ukraine, the protection of vulnerable persons and victims of crime and, last but not least, the digitalisation of international cross-border judicial cooperation with third countries.

Russian aggression against Ukraine

Ministers will discuss the collection and preservation of evidence for the purpose of prosecution of crimes in relation to the Russian aggression against Ukraine. The question of collection of all available evidence and its preservation plays a key role of the EU judicial response concerning the crimes committed by the occupation troops of the Russian Federation on the Ukraine soil. Those questions will be examined not only by the Ministers of Justice of the EU Member States, but also the president of Eurojust, Chief prosecutor of the  International Criminal Court in the Hague and the Ukraine Minister of Justice Denis Malyuska are invited to participate in the debate.

Civil law protection of vulnerable persons

Ministers of EU Member States will also discuss civil law protection of vulnerable persons, i.e. those persons who are unable to protect their interests due to impairment, insufficiency of their personal faculties or advanced age, and furthermore, who have found themselves in foreign territory, which makes their situation even more complicated. Therefore, special attention will be paid to the situation of vulnerable adults in the position of refugees.

Digitalization of international judicial cooperation

Topic of digitalization of justice belongs among priorities of the Czech Presidency in the Council of the EU. Thus, discussion will examine the possibilities of electronic communication in the context of judicial cooperation in criminal matters in relation to third states.

Protection of crime victims ‘rights

The discussion aims to exchange views on the question of whether the current system of harmonisation of the rights of victims of crime in several regulations is clear and what would be the optimal approach to the harmonisation of this area in order to ensure not only the interdependence and balance but also certain user-friendliness. This is also a topical issue in view of the forthcoming proposal for a revision of the Victims' Rights Directive, which is expected to be presented at the end of this year.

All accredited media representatives can attend the press conference. For accreditation click here.

Vladimír Řepka, Spokesperson, Ministry of Justice

tel.: +420 603 190 886, e-mail: ot@msp.justice.cz