THEMIS 2015 Semi-final A

First 2015 THEMIS semi-final held!  The first semi-final of the 2015 THEMIS Competition has been held in the Centre of the Judicial Academy of the Republic of Slovakia in Omšení, where international seminars are also regularly organised. The THEMIS Competition was held between 7 and 9 April, 2015. The topic of this first semi-final was International Cooperation in Criminal Matters. A warm welcome was given by the Director of the Judicial Academy, Mr. Peter Hulla as well as by the Academy's staff. EJTN also thanks Mr. Peter Doktor, Mr. Marian Balaj and Mrs Jana Michalickova, the International Relations Representative, for the support they have given us to make this event possible.

Over 3 days, 9 teams composed of 3 participants and one accompanying teacher issued from the following EU judicial institutions took part in this event:

• The National Institute of Justice in Bulgaria
• The Ecole Nationale de la Magistrature in France
• OLG Köln in Germany
• The Office of the Prosecutor General in Hungary
• The Hungarian office for the Judiciary in Hungary
• The Scuela Superiore della Magistratura in Italy
• The National School of Judiciary and Public Prosecution in Poland
• The Centro De Estudos Judiciários in Portugal,
• The National Institute of Magistracy in Romania.

Now in its tenth year, EJTN is proud of the growth of the THEMIS Competition over the years.

Organisation during the competition
In order to improve the knowledge of THEMIS participants about the different EU judicial systems, Ms Jana Michalichova gave an excellent presentation of the judicial system of the Republic of Slovak.

During the 3 days of the competition, each team had 90 minutes to defend its written paper and debate challenging issues with fellow teams members as well as the assembled jury members. The audio-visual technology used by the teams and the jury members was much appreciated as was the high level of knowledge and professionalism of each team. 

The originality as well as the high quality of the submitted teams' written papers and outstanding presentations drew the attention of the jurors, particularly in the case of the teams from Bulgaria, France and Portugal. These teams received a Special Jury Award for the above qualities.

Team Bulgaria	Team Germany	Team France
Team Hungary 1	Team Hungary 3	Team Poland
Team Portugal		EJTN's THEMIS Project Manager

The jury had the difficult task of nominating the two finalists for the Grand Final, which will be held in Bucharest in November. After the deliberations, Team Italy and Team Romania were selected as finalists.

Team Italy

Team Romania

Team Italy found the competition to be of great value. “We are happy to participate in the Themis Competition, as we are enjoying the possibility to work together to deliver a legal paper in the field of International Cooperation in Criminal Matters. The three of us will shortly start a new experience as Public Prosecutors, so we found it very helpful to address some criminal law issues also from an EU law perspective”. Thanks very much again for this opportunity and for your helpful assistance".

Some of the competing THEMIS teams provided their feedback and thoughts about the competition.

EJTN had the honour of having distinguished members of the jury to assess the competing teams. Mr. John Hardy QC, from the United Kingdom, Mr. Michael Vrtek, from the Czech Republic and Mr. Miroslav Slastan from the Slovak Republic.  Two of the jury members, Mr Michael Vrtek and Mr John Hardy, QC, provided their thoughts and assessments about the competition.

Please find the below materials:

Written_Paper_Bulgaria_1.pdf

Written_Paper_France_1.pdf

Written_Paper_Germany_1.pdf

Written_Paper_Hungary_1.pdf

Written_Paper_Hungary_3.pdf

Written_Paper_Italy_1.pdf

Written_Paper_Poland_1.pdf

Written_Paper_Portugal_1.pdf

Written_Paper_Romania 1.pdf