For the past week I have been in Prague at the CEELI Institute. This was my first visit and I hope not my last! The Institute is a wonderful facility that has hosted Judges, lawyers and civil society groups from around the world to advance the rule of law. Set within a public park, Havličkovy sady, it makes for a great learning environment and it is here I have been part of a team drafting a Bench Book to assist with adjudicating money laundering, cybercrime and terrorism trials in Bangladesh.
With the first draft of the Bench Book complete, I look forward to it becoming an official text and used by Judges sitting in trials and also for training the next generation of Judges.
Being so close to Prague Old Town, I also took the opportunity to visit the Saint Cyril and Methodius Chruch. It was here in 1942 that the Czech soldiers who had assassinated German SS General Heydrich, died after a fierce gun battle. The films Anthropoid, the code name for the operation, and the Man with the Iron Heart, tell this extraordinary resistance story from the Second World War. To see where six brave young men who were part of the team that assassinated Heydrich, fought against 750 soldiers and used their last bullets to kill themselves rather than surrender was incredibly humbling.
