Maltese law students elected to ELSA international board

Two members of the board of ELSA Malta are among the seven new members elected to ELSA's (European Law Students' Association) international board. They are Lavinia Micallef as vice president, marketing, and Daniel Azzopardi as treasurer.

The election was held during the ELSA International Council Meeting (ICM) held recently in Prague.

The ICM is ELSA's highest decision-making body. This was the 51st ICM since its inception 25 years ago. ELSA has a membership of 35,000 law students in 210 universities around Europe.

The elections were the climax of the ICM, an international experience lasting an entire week and attended by representatives of 28 countries.

Packed with workshops, conferences, plenary sessions, parties, and for those contesting, international lobbying, every ICM is an unforgettable experience for the law students who attend it. There is a lot to learn and a lot of experiences to be exchanged in the short span of a week.

During the different workshops there are discussions on how to make the organisation grow and improve, and it is always of great interest to see how organisational problems are tackled in different countries and how success is gauged from country to country.

ICMs are held every six months for the national groups to come together to find solutions and ways to move forward for the association, and then return to their respective countries to implement newly-devised strategies aimed at consolidating the network both locally and internationally.

This particular ICM was also a very special one because the previous 35 member countries represented became 36, with Montenegro becoming a member in its own right, after its split from Serbia. Vlado Dedovic, president, presented ELSA Montenegro's membership application to the council.

At the ICM each country is represented equally, having a weight of three votes no matter how many local groups it has or how big the country is. The largest number of local ELSA groups is found in Germany with 42, followed by Poland with 15. Each country was equally able to vote for the candidates, who contested the seven posts on the International Board.

The newly elected board is now composed of Matthias Stauffacher, president, from ELSA Switzerland, João Thiago Rocha Ferreira, secretary general, from ELSA Portugal, Daniel Azzopardi, treasurer, from ELSA Malta, Lavinia Micallef, vice-president, marketing, from ELSA Malta, Delia Orabona, VP STEP, from ELSA Italy, and Enis M. Burdurlu, VP Seminars and Conferences, from ELSA Turkey.

The post of VP Academic Activities still has to be filled, and a director will be appointed to the post by the newly elected international board. Each of the posts was contested by at least one other candidate, from countries including Russia, Norway, Poland and The Netherlands.

The law students association's network reaches beyond Europe: ILSA in North America, ALSA in Japan, ALSA in South Africa and AEJCI in the Ivory Coast. The president of the Australian Law Students' Association, Faraz Maghami, was also present at this ICM.

The primary task for the new members of the international board will be to supervise and administer the 36-country network in its entirety.

For the newly elected Maltese law students, a year of intense work and dedication lies ahead. On July 2 they will move to the ELSA house in Brussels where there will be a month of transition training with the present board. From then on, it's 12 months working with individuals from all over Europe, with many new experiences to be gained along the way.