Lecturer at the University of Wrocław elected as a judge of the European Court of Human Rights
Dr Anna Adamska-Gallant, a lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Administration and Economics at the University of Wrocław, was elected as a judge of the European Court of Human Rights on 1 October 2024.
The European Court of Human Rights is composed of 46 judges, one from each country where the European Convention on Human Rights is in force. In July, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced a shortlist of three candidates for the position of ECHR judge representing Poland. Among them was dr Anna Adamska-Gallant, a lecturer at the Chair of Criminology and Security Studies at the University of Wrocław. A few days ago, dr Adamska-Gallant received a recommendation for the position of ECHR judge, and on 1 October, she was elected to the position by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The European Court of Human Rights, established in 1959, is an international judicial body. Its headquarters are in Strasbourg. It rules on human rights cases based on the Convention and the protocols, including complaints from citizens of the Council of Europe member states that have ratified the Convention.
According to Article 21, section 3 of the Convention, the judges of the Court “must be individuals of the highest moral character and must either possess qualifications for holding high judicial office or be lawyers of recognized competence,” which is intended to guarantee a correspondingly high standard of rulings. It is established that one judge is selected from each of the member states of the Convention.
In 2022, Anna Adamska-Gallant obtained a PhD in social sciences with a specialization in law from the Faculty of Law, Administration and Economics at the University of Wrocław. She defended her doctoral dissertation with distinction on the topic “Instytucja tzw. świadka wrażliwego. Analiza prawnokryminalistyczna na podstawie praktyki międzynarodowych trybunałów karnych i sądów hybrydowych”Dr Anna Adamska-Gallant lectures at the Chair of Criminology and Security Studies at the University of Wrocław, which is headed by prof. dr hab. Maciej Szostak, under whose academic supervision her doctoral dissertation was developed.
She is a graduate of the Faculty of Law and Administration at the University of Gdańsk, the Postgraduate Studies in Intellectual Property and Industrial Property Law at the Jagiellonian University, and the English Law and Law of the European Union programme organised by the University of Gdańsk in collaboration with the University of Cambridge Board of Continuing Education.
Her research interests focus on the practical aspects of obtaining testimonial evidence in criminal proceedings and international criminal law.
For 17 years, she served as a judge in Poland and the Balkans, primarily ruling on criminal cases. From 2013 to 2018, as an international judge within the European Union rule of law mission in Kosovo, she adjudicated, among other cases, war crimes committed during the armed conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.
In 2015, she was appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court of Kosovo. Since 2018, she has worked as an independent expert on justice and the rule of law for Expertise France, the Council of Europe, and the World Bank. She advises on the process of establishing independent courts in Ukraine, where from 2018 to 2023, she led the judiciary reform component of the EU Pravo-Justice Ukraine project.
In 2021, she was appointed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the Council of Experts on Judicial Reform. She is an expert in combating human trafficking and human rights violations at the Centre for Research on Human Trafficking at the University of Wrocław and in the EU4FAST project in the Western Balkans.
In 2020, she was admitted to the list of attorneys in Lublin, and since 2021, she has also run her own law firm, specializing in criminal cases, human rights, and international criminal law.
From 2009 to 2013, she was the president of the Lublin branch of the Polish Judges Association “Iustitia” and a member of the national board from 2010 to 2012. She collaborates with the association European Judges for Democracy and Liberty (MEDEL – Magistrats Européens pour la Démocratie et les Libertés). She is actively involved in the “Sunflowers” Project, which collects information on war crimes committed in Ukraine. She is also a member of the Association in Honour of Prof. Zbigniew Hołda and the Polish section of the International Association of Penal Law (Association Internationale Droit Pénal).
Dr Anna Adamska-Gallant points out that “A judge at the European Court of Human Rights not only rules on violations that have occurred in the past. They also contribute to shaping the future through the continuous interpretation of human rights standards that member states should implement and adhere to.”
Congratulations to dr Anna Adamska-Gallant for assuming such an important position!
Complied by Katarzyna Górowicz-Maćkiewicz
Translated by Julia Kołakowska (student of English Studies at the University of Wrocław) as part of the translation practice.
