The Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE), representing over 700,000 lawyers from the European Union and European Economic Area through their member Bars and Law Societies, has granted its 2009 Human Rights Award to Stanislav Markelov, a Russian lawyer assassinated on 19 January 2009 in Moscow. 

As the Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs prepare to meet informally in Stockholm on 15-17 July, the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) today makes its recommendations to the drafters and implementers of the future ‘Stockholm Programme’, which will outline the work of the EU over the next 5 years in the area of justice, freedom and security. The European Commission has already published a communication on 10 June giving its vision.
 

In a four-point manifesto published today around the forthcoming European elections, the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) calls on EU decision-makers to ensure that there is proper co-ordination and coherence of policy in the justice sector, with particular attention to striking the right balance between fundamental rights and other political priorities, such as security. 

The Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE), representing over 700,000 lawyers from the European Union and European Economic Area through their member Bars and Law Societies, has granted its 2008 Human Rights Award to Li Heping, a well-known Chinese lawyer, and to the group of Spanish lawyers who represented defendants and victims in the trial following the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings. 

Through its members - the Bars and Law Societies of the European Union and the European Economic Area - the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) represents more than 700,000 European lawyers.

As a follow-up to the CCBE Ukraine roundtable on the law on the Bar, which took place on 26 September 2008 in Kiev, CCBE experts published today their conclusions of the roundtable and recommendations to the Ukrainian profession. The recommendations relate to issues such as the structure of a Bar Association, the employment of lawyers and the merger of professions.