Held under the High Patronage of Mr Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic, the ELI Annual Conference 2026, entitled Europe and the Rule of Law: Cultural Engagement and Legal Resilience, took place in Paris from 1–4 September 2026. The session Engaging Society on the Rule of Law brought together senior representatives of the judiciary, legal journalism, the legal profession, the notarial profession and the arts to examine how legal institutions can engage society more effectively on the importance of the rule of law.
For Lady Chief Justice Sue Carr (Head of the Judiciary of England and Wales; President of the Courts of England and Wales), public understanding is inseparable from the legitimacy of the judiciary. While judicial authority derives from law, expertise and independence, she stressed that ‘public trust is a foundation without which judicial legitimacy would rest on shaky ground.’ Greater transparency, including accessible judgments, access to court documents, cameras in courtrooms and engagement with the media, can help citizens understand not only judicial decisions but the processes behind them.
Yet communication alone is not enough. Culture, she argued, has a particular capacity to make difficult legal questions human and accessible. ‘Media communication can help people understand what courts do, but perhaps culture can help people understand why it matters.’ Theatre, literature, film and even sport can build empathy and connect abstract principles to experiences familiar from everyday life. Her central message was simple: ‘Our role, as protectors of the rule of law, is to bring that message to where the people are.’
Mark Ellis (Executive Director of the International Bar Association), similarly urged lawyers to move beyond technical legal language. Describing the legal profession as ‘the custodian of civilised society’, he emphasised its particular responsibility at a time when democratic institutions are facing mounting pressure.
‘We cannot talk about the rule of law as some dry, legalistic abstraction. For me, it is the great equaliser,’ Ellis said. Reaching the public – and young people in particular – requires new formats and a willingness to communicate differently. Referring to initiatives in which students themselves create videos about the rule of law, he observed: ‘use sport, use art, think outside the box.’
The challenge of communicating complex legal issues clearly was taken up by legal journalist Joshua Rozenberg (Legal Journalist), who recalled his early BBC training. When young journalists complained that 40 seconds was too little time to explain a story, experienced colleagues would reply: ‘I could tell the end of the world in 40 seconds, with an early warning in 25.’ Clarity, he stressed, is a skill: direct sentences, accessible language and reliable access to primary materials can help journalism explain even difficult judgments without sacrificing accuracy or nuance.
For Roland Wadge (President of the Council of Notariats of the European Union (CNUE)), engagement with the rule of law also means recognising how deeply it is embedded in ordinary transactions. It must work, not merely in constitutional litigation, but for a couple buying their first home, a person developing a business or a family administering an estate. ‘The truth about the rule of law is that it is not defended only in grand chambers. It is defended quietly, one deed at a time, in a notary’s office.’
The rule of law, Wadge added, ‘is not something you build and admire from afar. It is something you keep protecting and renewing day by day through the unglamorous work of keeping it alive.’ Preventing disputes, ensuring legal certainty and making rights effective in daily life are themselves vital forms of protecting it.
The panel concluded with a reenactment of Émile Zola’s 1898 trial following the publication of J’Accuse…!. Ariane de Guillenchmidt Guignot (Doctor of Law; Lawyer, Administrator, Scène et Justice) explained that the performance sought to make legal history, and the courage required to defend justice, to life for contemporary audiences. Those who rallied around Alfred Dreyfus, she recalled, ‘took up the cause of a man they barely knew, in the name of justice and the rule of law’, confronting the state, the army and prevailing public opinion.
Throughout the discussion, chaired by Bruno Lasserre (President, Commission for Access to Administrative Documents; Former Vice-President, French Council of State), a common message emerged: protecting the rule of law requires more than sound institutions and legal rules. It requires citizens who understand why those institutions matter, professionals willing to explain them, and new ways of reaching audiences who may never read a judgment or legal text. The challenge is therefore not merely to defend the rule of law, but to make it visible, understandable and relevant to everyday life.
This is also where ELI can make a distinctive contribution. Through its ability to convene judges, practitioners, academics, institutions and civil society across jurisdictions and legal traditions, and through its openness to genuine exchange between different perspectives, ELI provides a forum in which such questions can be explored beyond professional and national boundaries. By creating space for dialogue between communities that do not always meet, ELI can help ensure that shared commitments to the rule of law are not only articulated within the legal community, but communicated, tested and made meaningful for society more broadly.