reconstitution: Online Kick-Off Fellow Exchange Meeting

Fellows’ Exchange Meeting
Tue 27 Oct 2020 – Fri 30 Oct 2020

Online Kick-Off Fellow Exchange Meeting

re:constitution welcomes the second group of fellows!

Illustration: Nadine Roßa

From 27 to 30 October the Fellows of the second re:constitution group met up virtually to get to know each other. The 20 new Fellows joined the online meeting from 11 European countries and learned more about the work and the projects of the other Fellows in varied and interactive sessions.

In addition to the personal exchange between the Fellows we had a lot of interesting input from high-profile conveners. On the first day of the meeting, Andreas Voßkuhle, former President of the German Federal Constitutional Court and the acting President of the Austrian Constitutional Court, Christoph Grabenwarter, granted a look behind the scenes of European constitutional courts and discussed ways of defending constitutional jurisdiction in times of populism.

Together with London's Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law and with RECONNECT, we then examined two current developments in Europe during the following days of the meeting:

What kinds of challenges do technological developments and artificial intelligence present for the rule of law?

This question was addressed by a panel on 28 October, chaired by Dr. Julinda Beqiraj, Maurice Wohl Senior Research Fellow in European Law, Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law, with the experts

Merethe Eckhardt, Director of Development, Danish Court Administration "The CEPEJ Ethical Charter on Artificial Intelligence”
Prof. Mark Findlay, Director, Centre for AI and Data Governance, Singapore Management University "Rule of Law, Legitimacy and Effective COVID-19 Control Technologies
Tatjana Evas, Directorate-General for Parliamentary Research Services (EPRS), Secretariat of the European Parliament
"The EU regime for AI: From ethics to civil liability"

The webinar was recorded and can be found on the Bingham Centre website.

On 29 October, the Fellows discussed the Brexit and its constitutional implications for the United Kingdom, the EU and its member states in a smaller setting with the Bingham Centre and invited experts.

Interactive sessions with our partners from Democracy Reporting International and with the Academic Director of re:constitution, Christoph Möllers, on current constitutional issues in Europe, such as the much-discussed conditionality mechanism and other instruments for defending the rule of law in the EU, completed the programme of the first Fellow Meeting.

There were also many opportunities for the Fellows to get to know each other and for informal exchange in smaller group discussions, virtual coffee breaks and an online pub quiz.

The four-day exchange was accompanied by the illustrator Nadine Roßa, who created a graphic recording for each session, to visualise the results.

We wish our Fellows a successful start into the academic year 2020/21 and are looking forward to even more exchange, debates and joint projects and hope for a personal meeting in 2021.

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