The DigiRights Project
OUR RESEARCH CONSORTIUM
DIGIRIGHTS represents a consortium of seven partners: KU Leuven (Belgium), Tartu Ülikool (Estonia), Magyar Helsinki Bizottság (Hungary), Universität Göttingen (Germany), Università degli Studi di Genova (Italy), Sveučilišta u Zagrebu (Croatia), Université du Luxembourg (Luxembourg)
The consortium reunites jurisdictions that are representative of four different geographical areas of Europe: North, East, West and South. They have been chosen to reflect not only different souls of the EU, but also different criminal procedural traditions.
THE TEAM
KU Leuven
Principal Investigator
Prof. Michele Panzavolta
Michele Panzavolta is Associate Professor of Criminal Law at the Leuven Institute of Criminology (LINC), KU Leuven. He has experience as a practicing criminal lawyer in Italy. He specialises in European and international criminal law and in comparative studies on criminal law and procedure. His research interests are in intelligence-related topics, financial crime and asset recovery, digital evidence and, more generally, the protection of individual rights in criminal matters.
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Researcher
Dr. Anna Mosna
Anna Mosna is a postdoctoral researcher at the Leuven Institute of Criminology (LINC), KU Leuven. She holds a PhD from the University of Luxembourg, where she defended a doctoral thesis on ‘Art Laundering’, focusing on cultural property crime and laundering phenomena within the art market. Her research interests further lie in topics of judicial cooperation in criminal matters, including cross-border evidence gathering and defence rights protection.
Junior Researcher
Dr. Ashlee Beazley
Ashlee Beazley is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Leuven Institute of Criminology (LINC), KU Leuven. She holds a PhD from the KU Leuven where she defended her thesis on ‘Poor Lawyering: A Comparative Study of the Quality of Criminal Defence Assistance in England and Belgium’ in 2023. Her research interests include comparative criminal law and procedure, European criminal law, legal history, legal ethics, and of course, defence and fair trial rights.
Tartu University
Team Leader Estonia
Prof. Jaan Ginter
Jaan Ginter is a Professor of Criminology at the School of Law of the University of Tartu. He is serving as the European Criminal Law Academic Network Contact Point for Estonia. His research and writing encompass criminology, judicial system, ethics, criminal law and procedure (including international and European criminal law and procedure). Author of 11 monographs, 19 articles published in the journals indexed or abstracted in international databases or in the collections of articles published by international science publishing houses, 20 other academic papers, 5 conference abstracts and 8 other publications (textbooks, legal commentaries, etc). Experienced at working in a European and global dimension such as being a rapporteur for Latvia and Malta at the Council of Europe GRECO workgroup, member of different workgroups focusing on the cooperation in criminal matters between the EU Member States and assessing transposition of multiple EU Directives into the Estonian law.
Hungarian Helsinki Committee
Team Leader Hungary
Dr. András Kadar
András Kristóf Kádár is a lawyer, has been working for the Hungarian Helsinki Committee since 1998 and has been its co-chair since 2007. He has extensive experience in human rights monitoring of law enforcement agencies, criminal procedural rights, equal treatment, and the rule of law. András Kádár has conducted research on prison conditions in Hungary and has authored several studies on the subject. He was the leader of the project experiment on the reform of the public defender system. As a lawyer, he is actively involved in a wide variety of proceedings, winning several high-profile cases before the European Court of Human Rights. He is the author of numerous studies and co-author of several publications on criminal policy, the prison system, policing, access to justice, the defence system, equal treatment and the rule of law.
Researcher
Dr. Tünde Komoróczki
Tünde Komoróczki is a lawyer who gained experience in labour law, corporate law and social security law at a law firm, and later in competiton law at the Hungarian Competition Authority. During and after university she has also volunteered with several legal aid organisations. She joined the Justice and Rule of Law Programme at the Hungarian Helsinki Committee in 2022 February, where, as a legal officer, she works to enforce prisoners’ rights and for a more humane criminal justice system.
Researcher
Lili Krámer
Lili Krámer is a project manager and policy researcher at the Justice Programme of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee. A Sociologist-Criminologist, she has extensive experience as a coordinator and researcher of various EU-funded projects contributing to a fair and humane criminal justice system, where real alternatives to imprisonment exist for all and the communication of authorities in the criminal procedure is more accessible. She is one of the founding members of a grass-roots support network for people in detention and their family members. As part of this group, she edited and co-authored a research report on the shortcomings of the Hungarian contact policy regime inside penitentiaries. She is an experienced organiser and facilitator of training programmes, and she is a visiting lecturer at the biggest Hungarian University, ELTE Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Social Sciences.
University of Göttingen
Team Leader Germany
Prof. Kai Ambos
Kai Ambos is Chair for Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Comparative Law, International Criminal Law and Public International Law at the Faculty of Law, Georg-August-University Göttingen. He is also Acting Director at the Institute for Criminal Law and Justice, Director of the Centro de Estudios de Derecho Penal y Procesal Penal Latinoamericano (CEDPAL), Judge Kosovo at the Specialist Chambers of The Hague, Netherlands, and Advisor (amicus curiae) of the Colombian Special Jurisdiction for Peace.
Researcher
Prof. Peter Rackow
Peter Rackow is an Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Law of the Georg-August-University Göttingen since 2018. After his Habilitation in Göttingen in 2007, he taught at the German Police University in Münster-Hiltrup and subsequently worked as a lawyer specialising in traffic law.
He is also a long-standing member of the Lower Saxony State Office for Legal Examinations. His main areas of interest are national criminal law in the area of offences against public order and European criminal law as well as mutual legal assistance.
Junior Researcher
Lena Ertle
Lena Ertle is a Junior Researcher in the DigiRights project at the University of Göttingen. She completed her studies at the University of Konstanz with the First Legal State Examination and a focus on criminal law. She then completed her legal clerkship, which she concluded with the Second Legal State Examination. During her legal clerkship she worked at the Public Prosecutor's Office and in an EU project (Strengthening procedural rights in police custody: ProRPC) at the Ludwig-Boltzmann Institute for Fundamental and Human Rights in Vienna.
University of Genoa
Team Leader Italy
Prof. Mitja Gialuz
Mitja Gialuz is Full Professor of Criminal Procedure at the University of Genoa. He is an Adjunct Professor of Criminal Procedure at the University Luiss Guido Carli. He has experience as a practicing criminal lawyer in Italy. He specialises in European criminal procedure. His main areas of research are appellate remedies, the right to interpretation and translation, and plea bargaining.
Researcher
Prof. Michela Miraglia
Michela Miragliais Associate Professor of Criminal Procedure at the University of Genoa. She specialises incomparative and international criminal procedure. Her research interests focus on defence rights, diversion, probation and the role of judicial assistants in criminal justice.
Researcher
Dr. Jacopo Della Torre
Jacopo Della Torre is Senior Assistant Professor of Criminal Procedure at the University of Genoa. He was previously Junior Assistant Professor at the University of Trieste. He holds a PhD from the University of Udine, where he defended his thesis on “Negotiated Justice”. His main research interests are in the fields of comparative criminal procedure, the law of evidence, special procedures, the management of justice and financial crime.
University of Zagreb
Team Leader Croatia
Prof. Elizabeta Ivičević Karas
Elizabeta Ivičević Karas is a full professor at the Department of Criminal Procedural Law at the University of Zagreb. In 2007, she defended her doctoral dissertation under the title "Le principe de l'égalité des armes en matière pénale dans l ajurisprudence de la Cour européenne des droits de l'homme et en droit comparé (croate, français)" in the course of obtaining a dual doctorate at the Université Panthéon-Assas (Paris II) and the University of Zagreb.
Since 2010, she has participated in the work of several expert working groups of the Ministry of Justice and Administration for drafting regulations in the field of criminal procedural law and penitentiary law. From 2015 to 2017, she was entrusted with the role of the head of an expert working group on Draft Amendments to the Criminal Procedure Act.
Since July 2019, she has been on the list of ad hoc judges at the European Court of Human Rights, for the Republic of Croatia.
Researcher
Prof. Marin Bonačić
Marin Bonačić is an Associate Professor of Criminal Procedure at the University of Zagreb Faculty of Law in Croatia. He obtained a PhD from University of Zagreb Faculty of Law with thesis “The Legacy of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia”. His research interests are focused on the area of criminal procedure, including international and European criminal procedure and cooperation, and misdemeanor procedure. So far, he has participated in a number of European and national projects.
Researcher
Prof. Zoran Burić
Zoran Burić is an associate professor of criminal procedure at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Law. He is the editor in chief of the scientific journal Zagreb Law Review. He gained his PhD in the framework of a joint doctoral programme (University of Zagreb/University of Freiburg, Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law) with a thesis Models of Cross-border Evidence Gathering in European Union Criminal Law. He has participated in the work of numerous international scientific projects, among others European Investigation Order – Legal Analysis and Practical Dilemmas of International Cooperation, CrossJustice - Knowledge, Advisory and Capacity Building Information Tool for Criminal Procedural Rights in Judicial Cooperation, and TEVNAS - Targeted Early Victim Needs Assessment and Support. In several projects which had the aim of evaluating the conformity of the Croatian criminal law legislation with EU law, he acted as the national legal expert. He is regularly a member of working groups formed at the Croatian ministry in charge of justice with the aim of drafting amendments to the legislation regulating criminal procedure, judicial cooperation in criminal matters, and rights of the suspects and the accused persons and of the victims of crime. He is involved in the programmes for the life-long education of Croatian judicial and police professionals, attorneys at law and professionals of the victims support system. Main areas of his professional interests are criminal procedure, EU criminal law, victims of crime, and psychiatry and law.
University of Luxembourg
Team Leader Luxembourg
Prof. Silvia Allegrezza
Silvia Allegrezza is Associate Professor of Criminal law at the University of Luxembourg. Her research focuses on European criminal law and criminal procedure, comparative evidence law, genetics forensics, financial crime, and anti-money laundering integrated strategies. She has led several research projects and written widely on the above. She is a member of the EU Commission experts’ group on criminal justice, served as Rapporteur for the EU Parliament on anti-money laundering and cooperates with the European Central Bank on administrative sanctions.
Researcher
Dr. Lorenzo Bernardini
Lorenzo Bernardini in Postdoctoral Researcher in Criminal Law at the University of Luxembourg. His research focuses on European criminal law and criminal procedure, fair trial rights, mutual recognition of freezing and confiscation orders, criminalization of the breach ofEU restrictive measures and and immigration detention. He holds a PhD in Global Studies from the University of Urbino, where he defended a doctoral thesis on ‘Immigration detention in Europe’. He is currently involved in a DJ JUST Project (‘FORCE’) on mutual recognition of freezing and confiscation orders across the EU.