President and legal representative
Marc NEVE is a lawyer, specialized in criminal law and in particular in prison law, former President of Avocats sans frontières (ASF), member and Vice-President of the CPT, former President of the Prison Commission of the Ligue des droits humains (Belgium), Lecturer at the University of Liège and the University of Marseille-Aix-en-Provence, President of the Conseil central de surveillance pénitentiaire (Belgium), author of numerous publications on criminal law and prison law.
Vice-presidents
Krassimir KANEV is co-founder and director of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee. His organisation and himself took part in litigating the Neshkov judgment by representing one of the applicants and by submitting a third party opinion for the European Court of Human Rights. He has represented several prisoners before the Court, including in the cases of Dimcho Dimov v. Bulgaria, Palfreeman v. Bulgaria, M.G. v. Bulgaria, Kulinski and Sabev v. Bulgaria and others. 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 missions.
Simon CREIGHTON is a solicitor and a 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.
General Secretary
Sofia CIUFFOLETTI, PhD in Constitutional Justice and Human Rights, is research fellow at the University of Florence and researcher in the Interuniversity Research Center L‘Altro diritto on Prison, Deviance, Marginality and Migration Governance (http://www.adir.unifi.it) . She is the coordinator of the Legal Clinic on the European Court of Human Rights system of Protection of Rights. She is President of L‘Altrodiritto, Italian NGO working in the field of prisoners‘ rights, antidiscrimination law and migration law.
Other members of the Board
Benoit DAVID is a lawyer at the Paris Bar, President of the association Ban Public and board members of the association A3D, an association of lawyers for the defense of detainees‘ rights.
Xabier ETXEBARRIA is from Bilbao, Spain. He is currently a full-time professor of Criminal Law atthe Faculty of Law at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. From 2005 to 2009 he was theDirector 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 Encarceration: Analysis and Recommendations on Three Realities: Inmigration, Refuge, and Mental Illness and Prison
Nicoleta HRIPLIVII, a State University of Moldova graduate, is an 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.
Pascal MONTFORT is a French magistrate.
Hanna OVDIIENKO is a lawyer at the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group in Ukraine, with extensive experience of litigation before the European Court of Human Rights. Currently, her activities are focused on documenting war crimes, collecting evidence of their commission, and preparing individual and group cases for international mechanisms, in particular the International Criminal Court and UN treaty bodies.
Oleh TSVILIY is a Ukrainian human rights activist and former prisoner. He is the head of the NGO “Protection for Prisoners of Ukraine”, an NGO founded by former detainees who monitors fundamental rights in places of detention of Ukraine through their network of prisoners, former prisoners and relatives of prisoners. The association has been collaborating with EPLN for several years. This collaboration has been intensifying since February 2022 as members of Alliance for Ukrainian Unity are actively engaged in the monitoring of fundamental rights in places of detention in territories under control of Russian troops.