DataProtFundRights

Fundamental Rights and Data Protection in EU Law

Implementation
The project is being implemented by EIPA Luxembourg – European Centre for Judges and Lawyers (ECJL) in partnership with KSSIP – Krajowa Szkola Sadownictwa I Prokuratury in Poland, NCA – Nacionaline Teismu Administracija in Lithuania, CGAE – Consejo General De La Abogacia Espanola in Spain and NRA – Naczelna Rada Adwokacka in Poland.

Introduction
The European Union’s Area of Freedom, Security and Justice, based on the principles of mutual trust and mutual recognition, is established on the full respect of fundamental rights and rule of law, which are the founding values of the European Union. It is the duty and responsibility of the Member States of the European Union to ensure compliance with fundamental rights when acting under the scope of the EU law, and even more so when they administer civil and criminal proceedings involving the application of the EU’s judicial cooperation instruments. Firm commitment to a rights-based approach also ensures that rule of law issues that may arise in cross-border cooperation, mostly stemming from concerns related to detention conditions and the independence of the judiciary in certain EU Member States, are tackled properly while preserving fundamental values of the EU.

The EU Charter enshrines data protection as a fundamental right under Article 8, in addition and distinctively to the respect for private and family life under Article 7. The General Data Protection Regulation is an essential and coherent instrument in the Union that strengthens the individuals’ fundamental rights in the digital age. The deployment and use of new technologies provoke the concepts of data privacy and data protection due to their complexity, lack of transparency, and the data migration across borders outside of the Union. Data protection is a prior condition to the exercising of the other fundamental rights enshrined within the EU Charter and the General Data Protection Regulation’s harmonised rules and enforcement mechanism are of paramount importance to protect fundamental rights.

The overall objective of the project is to contribute to the effective and coherent application of EU law, especially with regard to the implementation of mutual recognition instruments in the field of judicial cooperation by increasing the correct and consistent understanding of the fundamental rights environment in the EU Area of Freedom, Security and Justice.

The project seeks to achieve this objective through developing sustainable training practices addressing the needs of justice professionals across the EU by providing a hands-on training on the scope and application of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (EU Charter) and the General Data Protection Regulation from the perspective of the rights protected by these comprehensive instruments by putting them into specific contexts relevant for the judiciary.

The specific objectives of the project are:

to make the ever so relevant fundamental rights context more understandable, by devoting specific trainings on the scope and application of the EU Charter and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), relevant for national civil and criminal law proceedings but quintessential for cross border cooperation on the basis of which mutual recognition and mutual trust can operate.The trainings will go beyond the mere study of the said instruments, and will approach them from a rights-based premise. This will be achieved by discussing the protection standards and placing them into the current context, where concerns are growing regarding mutual recognition and mutual trust;

to tackle the topic of Data Protection from the perspective of the rather complex, fluid and dynamic digital ecosystem, in which personal data is being processed, diminishing the distinction between the different data protection actors. The training series will specifically address the challenges related to the observance of personal data rights, due to the increase in the number of actors in any given set of processing operations, the allocation of responsibility becoming increasingly obscure, and the legal status of actors becoming more difficult to identify;
to strengthen the principles of mutual trust and mutual recognition, by seeking answers on how to find firm grounds rights based approach in cases of systemic deficiencies and how to operate under the principles of mutual trust and mutual recognition with a view however to the Aranyosi case law and the Deficiencies of the justice system case law;
to highlight the data protection rights in the context of new technological disruption, the diminishing role of the data protection actors, and therefore allocation of their responsibilities with regards to the C-40/17 – Fashion ID case law, the protection of personal data transferred outside of the Union with a view to the C-498/16 – Schrems (II) case law invalidating the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, and the rights of the data subject to effective judicial remedy, to compensation and liability;
to contribute to the promotion of fundamental rights and data privacy rights, taking specifically into account the standard of protection set-outby the European Convention on Human Rights as afforded by the European Court of Human Rights

The target audience of the project will be legal practitioners having a legal background and working in the EU Member States’ justice system, either in the capacity of a judge, prosecutor or defence lawyer.

Legal practitioners linked to any of the project partner institutions personally participating in the training activities will directly and concretely benefit from the projects’ expected results regarding increased and substantiated knowledge and improved mutual trust and cooperation.

In addition, legal professionals linked to any of the project partner institutions, but not participating in the training activities will be benefiting from the project through the digital training materials, which will be translated into the official languages of the participating partner institutions i.e., French, Polish, Lithuanian and Spanish and which will be made available via the EIPA’s learning management system.

The wider audience of legal professionals not linked to any of the project partner institutions will as well benefit from the project through the digital training materials, which will be made available to the public via the project’s webpage on EIPA’s website, linked to the partner institutions platforms (websites and/or intranet).

To make the ever so relevant fundamental rights context more understandable, by devoting specific trainings on the scope and application of the EU Charter and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), relevant for national civil and criminal law proceedings but quintessential for cross-border cooperation on the basis of which mutual recognition and mutual trust can operate.
To tackle the topic of Data Protection from the perspective of the rather complex, fluid and dynamic digital ecosystem, in which personal data is being processed, diminishing the distinction between the different data protection actors.
To strengthen the principles of mutual trust and mutual recognition, by seeking answers on how to find firm grounds rights based approach in cases of systemic deficiencies and how to operate under the principles of mutual trust and mutual recognition with a view however to the C-404/15 Aranyosi and Cladaruru case law (see also C#220/18 PPU ML; C#128/18, Dumitru-Tudor Dorobantu; C-216/18 LM; C#354/20 PPU L and C#412/20 PPU P);
To highlight the data protection rights in the context of new technological disruption, the diminishing role of the data protection actors, and therefore allocation of their responsibilities with regards to the C-40/17 – Fashion ID case law, the protection of personal data transferred outside of the Union with a view to the C-498/16 – Schrems (II) case law invalidating the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, and the rights of the data subject to effective judicial remedy, to compensation and liability;.
To specifically contribute to the promotion of fundamental rights and data privacy rights, taking specifically into account the standard of protection set-outby the European Convention on Human Rights as afforded by the European Court of Human Rights.

Training activities details

The project includes:

Module 1 – Introduction to EU protection of fundamental rights

Registration form

Module 2 – Introduction to EU data protection and privacy law

Registration form

Planned in a hybrid- and back-to-back format, pulling together seminar 1-2, 3-4 and 5-6, taking place at the below mentioned locations:

EU Charter on Fundamental Rights and the national judiciary
EU Charter on Fundamental Rights and judicial cooperation in civil matters

Location: Luxembourg (Luxembourg), 25-26 October 2022

Full programme

EU Charter on Fundamental Rights and judicial cooperation in criminal matters I
EU Charter on Fundamental Rights and judicial cooperation in criminal matters II

Location: Madrid (Spain), 2 – 3 March 2023

Full programme

EU data protection and privacy law I
EU data protection and privacy law II

Location: Warsaw (Poland), 13 – 14 June 2023

Full programme

Additionally, the introductory modules as well as the advanced training materials will be available in the languages of the partners: English, French, Spanish, Polish, Lithuanian.