After 45 years of career, Eric Gillet retires
Eric Gillet, one of the founding members of EQUAL, is leaving the firm after a fruitful career in which people were always at the heart of his concerns.
Eric has been a lawyer since 1977, specialising in public and administrative law. In recent years, he focused on public finance law. He assisted many public authorities and businesses in achieving some of the most important projects in the public sphere.
He was also deeply invested in human rights. From 1986 to 1990, he was the president of the Belgian branch of Amnesty International. He helped found the Revue trimestrielle des droits de l’homme (Human Rights Quarterly) in 1990 and served on its editorial board until 1995. He carried out several enquiries into human rights violations, notably in Rwanda, Burundi, Niger, Macedonia, Kosovo and Serbia, and represented many civil parties throughout the five criminal trials at the Brussels Court of Assizes following the Rwandan Tutsi genocide in 1994, the last of which was held in 2019. He was also regularly called on as an expert witness before foreign courts. He has been president of the non-profit association RCN Justice & Démocratie since 2017.
Eric has authored numerous publications in all his fields of activity. He was a member of the editorial board of the Revue de droit communal (Common Law Journal) for 25 years and of the Public Law Commission of the Brussels Bar for the same length of time.
Eric was one of the founding lawyers of EQUAL in 2015 and supported the firm’s defence of the association Klimaatzaak and the 62,000 claimants in the important climate change case brought against the Belgian governments, in which pleading ended recently on 26th March 2021. This case was particularly close to his heart, given the challenges that global warming presents for the future of humanity.
The entire team wishes to offer Eric its heartfelt thanks for his contribution to the success of the EQUAL project and his commitment to passing on his knowledge to the youngest generations. We wish Eric a retirement every bit as happy, fulfilling and intense as his professional life.
On 10th June, we will celebrate EQUAL’s sixth anniversary and Eric’s departure.
Please save the date: you will receive more practical details of this event in the coming weeks.
Associated areas of specialisation: Day-to-day life at EQUAL