On Wednesday 17th May, Richard Clayton QC will talk at Wolfson College on: "The Venice Commission and the Rule of Law Crisis".

Richard Clayton QC is a leading public law barrister who heads the public law team at 7 Bedford Row. In addition to his practice at the Bar, he is the United Kingdom's representative on the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe's advisory body on constitutional matters. The role of the Commission is to provide legal advice to its member states and, in particular, to help states wishing to bring their legal and institutional structures into line with European standards in the fields of democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

On Friday 2 May 2014, Hasan Bakirci (Senior Lawyer, ECtHR) spoke at an event held at Wolfson College in association with the Wolfson Law Society.

Hasan Bakirci is a senior official at the European Court of Human Rights. He studied law in Istanbul and Oxford, graduating from both places with distinction. He is the author of a practitioner’s handbook on Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Mr Bakirci has sixteen years’ experience as a lawyer at the Court, and prior to that worked for two years as a lawyer at the European Commission of Human Rights. He is currently a Head of Division at the Court and Deputy to the Registrar of the Filtering Section. He was recently responsible for overseeing a major initiative designed to bring the Court’s famously large backlog of cases under control.

The talk was followed by a Q&A session chaired by Mr Jamie Trinidad, Junior Research Fellow of Wolfson College.

On Thursday 31st October 2013, Professor Spyridon Flogaitis of the University of Athens spoke at an event held at Wolfson College in association with the Wolfson Law Society.