This Thursday in Tenerife, King Felipe VI inaugurated the second meeting of the Conference of Ministers of Justice of the Ibero-American Countries (COMJIB) and the Conference of Ministers of Justice of the Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CMJPLOP) with a speech focused on value of cooperation between countries in a global scenario of human mobility.
“It is a world in which migratory movements are intensifying and accelerating: more and more people are leaving for other countries for professional, family, economic reasons, to study or to flee conflicts or situations of poverty. This makes international cooperation increasingly urgent and necessary in many areas, including, in particular, that of Justice,” he stressed.
Don Felipe presided over the opening ceremony together with the Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Cortes, Felix Bolanos; the President of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, and the Secretary General of Comjib, Enrique Gil Botero, in the presence of legal operators from twenty countries, such as the Attorney General of the State, Álvaro García Ortiz.
And Clavijo spoke about migrations in his speech at the opening ceremony, after thanking “the interest and the always extended hand” of the king, with whom he held a private audience on Wednesday. “We are living a unprecedented migration crisis in the archipelago, which makes us the support and the retaining wall of all migration from Africa,” he stressed, to emphasize that the islands are today “the mirror in which any place in the world can look at itself: a land of solidarity that “is facing a delicate moment.”
During his speech, the King highlighted the work carried out by Comjib and the General Council of Notaries of Spain, which sponsors the event, in recent years, in the consolidation of legal information sharing networks between different countries. “Today we have a powerful ally in technology. Its benefits must be used to create spaces for cooperation in civil and criminal matters, which contribute to increasing the efficiency of institutions at the service of Justice,” said the King.
He was referring to the effectiveness of these systems “facilitate the obtaining of evidence, the sharing of information, improve the coordination, rigor and speed of investigations in the fight against organized crime, drug trafficking or human trafficking; as well as against corruption and other forms of crime, by speeding up extraditions and, in general, by optimizing international legal cooperation.
“We must not forget everyday justice”
“We must not forget, moreover, everyday justice, which must govern human relations, contribute to peace and development, which must be accessible to citizens and businesses in our countries, shorten distances, bring people and families closer together, and guarantee the safe circulation and exchange of documentation,” he stressed.
According to him, “to achieve these objectives, it is necessary to maintain and strengthen cooperation between judicial, fiscal, police and notarial institutions through protocols and technical tools that serve Justice and generate trust, having a high level of legal and technological security, so that they are protected against fraud and cybercrime.
Throughout the conference, the progress of Comjib’s IberRed project, which seeks to connect Ibero-American operators in the way Eurojust does within the European Union -there are already 22 countries-, and IberFides, the digital ecosystem created in 2021 by the General Council of the Spanish Notariat to facilitate the direct exchange of authentic documents between notaries from different countries, streamlining procedures and reducing times and costs for the citizen.
“Today, this objective is already a reality on three continents, since technological development has been completed in Bolivia, Sao Tome and Principe and Spain, and to which other Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries will be added,” the King stressed.
Meanwhile, Bolaños, who will participate in closed-door working groups as part of the meeting, said that “crimes committed with the participation of different venues constitute a challenge to the rule of law,” an area that this event must serve because “No country can solve this problem alone” and “a coordinated effort is necessary to carry out successful and effective policies.” “Cooperation is not a simple exchange, it strengthens ties, it strengthens a commitment,” he stressed.
