European Law Lecture

Last night I went to a law lecture at Southampton University with Anthony Borg Barthet, who is a judge in the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The ECJ is the court of the European Community and should not be confused with the European Court of Human Rights, which is a court not connected to the EU.

It was an interesting lecture, but very hard to follow as Mr Barthet simply read out a paper he had written. Mr Barthet gave an inside account of how the ECJ deliberates and laid out the recent development of EC law in the field of criminal law.

Especially the question and answer session was very good and I thought it was very interesting to hear a judge from highest court in Europe answer questions of EC law.

Not everyone, however, liked the lecture, perhaps because of Mr. Barthet's non-spectacular speaking style. As one (British) student said on his way out: "No wonder the ECJ is so bad when people like him run it!"