The jury of the Junior Crystal Scales of Justice Prize convened on May 28, 2024. It decided to reward a team of students from the Faculty of Law at Leiden University (Netherlands), Matheus F. Andrade Mendes, Rosa S. Calles Contreras, Justy Thomas, and Paul Benedict Lee, supervised by Philex T.L. YE (link to the project), for their defense of an initiative by the Court of appeal of Mons (Belgium) regarding the establishment of a "Civil and criminal chamber specialised in environmental and urbanism matters”, which was rewarded by the CEPEJ in 2023. 

The jury also decided to grant two special mentions to :

• the team from the Faculty of Law, Political Science, and Criminology at the University of Liège (Belgium), supervised by Patrick Wautelet (link to the Project – in French), for the defense of a Cypriot project entitled “Kids in Court Game (KiCGame)”

• the team from Eötvös Loránd University (Hungary), supervised by Reka Somssich (link to the project), for the defense of the European project entitled « Facility Dogs Europe – FYDO »

The jury was chaired by Jean-Paul JEAN, Honorary President of Chamber of the French Court of Cassation, Ivan CRNCEC, Advisor to the Croatian Minister of Justice and Vice-President of the CEPEJ, Meryem DEMIR, Legal adviser to the FPS of Justice in Belgium , Seçkin KOCER, Judge, Türkiye, Séverine MENETREY, Professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Luxembourg, Florence THEPOT, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law of Strasbourg, and Martin PLISSONNIER, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law and Political Science at the University of Paris Nanterre.

The Junior Crystal Scales of Justice Prize, organized jointly by the CEPEJ and the Faculty of Law of Strasbourg, complements the Crystal Scales of Justice Prize, a European prize for innovative practices contributing to the efficiency and quality of justice, organized by the CEPEJ. This Junior prize is open to Master’s students from the Faculties of Law of one of the member states of the Council of Europe or of an observer country of the CEPEJ and is held every two years, alternating with the Crystal Scales of Justice Prize.

For this third edition of the Junior Crystal Scales of Justice Prize, 7 student teams from Italy, Georgia, Lithuania, Hungary, Belgium, and the Netherlands took part. The pre-selected candidate teams were invited to orally defend their projects before the jury via video conference.

The award ceremony for the 3rd Edition of the Junior Crystal Scales Prize will take place during the CEPEJ plenary meeting on June 18 and 19, 2024 in Strasbourg, at the Council of Europe, during which the winning team will be invited to present its project.