On 15-16 September 2022, the European Judicial Training Network, an EU wide platform to promote training of judicial professionals of the Member States, in partnership with Eurojust, offered a training on ‘Cultural Diversity in the Courtroom’, with a focus on ‘public order’ arguments. Professor Kristin Henrard, who is the Programme Director of the BA in International and European Law at the Brussels School of Governance, gave the keynote lecture, entitled ‘Public Order Related Arguments that Limit Fundamental Rights: Pitfalls of the ECtHR’s Margin of Appreciation Doctrine and Possibilities/Challenges for National Judges’.
Subsequently, the participating judges worked in four workshops, focusing respectively on criminal law (for example criminal prohibitions of marriage of minors), labor law (including questions of reasonable accommodation in the workplace), family law (marriage, divorce, child care in relation to couples with mixed religions/ethnic background) and public spaces (headscarves etc). The limited guidance by the ECtHR was often returned to, as well as the struggle of the national judges to strike the ‘right’ balance in these controversial and complex matters.
