Board

Lawyer, specialized in criminal law and prison law. He is currently the president of the Central Prisons Supervisory Council and was formerly member and Vice-President of the CPT, President of the NGO Avocats sans frontières (Lawyers without Borders), and President of the Prison Commission at the Belgian League of Human Rights. He is also a Lecturer at the Universities of Liège and of Marseille-Aix-en-Provence, and is the author of numerous publications on criminal law and prison law.

Co-founder of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee. His organisation and himself have extensive experience in prison litigation before the European Court of Human Rights, including in landmark cases such as the pilot-judgment Neshkov v. Bulgaria and the cases Dimcho Dimov v. Bulgaria, Palfreeman v. Bulgaria, M.G. v. Bulgaria, Kulinski and Sabev v. Bulgaria. He took part in the working group of the Ministry of Justice of Bulgaria for the reform of the legislation following the Neshkov judgment. He has visited more than 200 prisons and other places of detention in more than 20 countries of Europe, Middle East and Central Asia during monitoring.

Solicitor and founding partner at Bhatt Murphy Solicitors. He has practised in prison law since 1993 when he was appointed as the first solicitor to the Prisoners’ Advice Service. He was one of the first UK lawyers to specialise in this area and as well as conducting his own cases, through writing and education he has helped ensure that prison law is now seen as a distinct area of practice in its own right. He has particular specialism in life sentences, including whole life sentences and juveniles serving life sentences. Since 2020, Simon is also fee paid tribunal judge specialized on mental health issues.

Research fellow at the University of Florence and researcher in the Interuniversity Research Center L‘Altro diritto on Prison, Deviance, Marginality and Migration Governance. She coordinates the Legal Clinic on the European Court of Human Rights system of protection of rights. She is President of the NGO L‘Altro diritto specialising on prisoners‘ rights, anti-discrimination law and migration law.

Attorney specializing in human rights and international law with more than 15 years of professional experience. Besides being an attorney, Nicoleta is a co-founder of the Moldovan NGO Promo-LEX Association and an active human rights defender. She was involved in various projects related to combating ill-treatment and torture in prisons; drug laws and policies and their impact on the enjoyment of human rights; promoting human rights in the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria.

Lawyer, Board member of the NGO Observatoire international des prisons, Member of the Paris Bar Council, President of the NGO Ban Public, and Board member of the Association of Lawyers for the Defence of Prisoners' Rights (A3D)

Full-time professor of Criminal Law at the Faculty of Law of the Complutense University of Madrid. From 2005 to 2009 he was the Director of Criminal Measure Implementations of the Department of Justice of the Government of the Basque Country. From 2002 to 2005 and from 2009 to 2021 he has practiced criminal law and prison execution law. He was a visiting scholar at the University of San Diego in July and August 2019. He has published extensively on criminal law, prison implementation law, juvenile criminal law, terrorism, and restorative justice. One of his most renowned publications is “Manual de ejecución penitenciaria” (Handbook on Prison Implementation Rules), which reached ten editions. He is currently a researcher in a Project I+D+i PID2019-105778RB-I00 on Social Exclusion, Criminal Justice, and Systems of Incarceration: Analysis and Recommendations on Three Realities: Inmigration, Refuge, and Mental Illness and Prison.

Zsófia Moldova is a lawyer and the Director of the Justice Program at the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC) in Budapest, Hungary. In her role, she leads a team dedicated to preventing torture and ill-treatment by law enforcement and in closed institutions, while also ensuring the fairness of the criminal justice system. As part of the HHC's management team, she helps oversee the operations of one of Hungary’s leading human rights organisations. Zsófia has been a prison monitoring expert for 12 years and has 15 years of experience as a researcher and lawyer in the fields of penitentiary and criminal law. She is the founding member of FECSKE, a support network for detainees and their families, and has served as a country researcher for the European Prison Litigation Network (EPLN). Additionally, Zsófia is a member of the strategy facilitator team at the School of Public Life, where she supports NGOs in strategy development and implementation.

Judge at the Supreme Judicial Court (Cour de Cassation), specialising in human rights and European law. He was a magistrate in local courts before working as a legal adviser on European and international law at the French Ministry of Justice. Before joining the Supreme Court, he also headed a unit at the French Ombudsman (Défenseur des droits), which is responsible for monitoring the implementation of prisoners' rights.

Ukrainian human rights activist and former prisoner. He is the head of the NGO Protection for Prisoners of Ukraine (PPU) founded by former detainees who monitor fundamental rights in places of detention of Ukraine with the involvement of prisoners, former prisoners and relatives of prisoners. Since February 2022, PPU and EPLN have stepped up their cooperation as PPU is actively involved in the monitoring of fundamental rights in places of detention in territories under control of Russian troops.