Empowered to make a difference

Ruth Marks MBE, the Older People's Commissioner for Wales, to deliver the 10th Anniversary Centre for Welsh Legal Affairs Annual Lecture at Aberystwyth University.

This year's Centre for Welsh Legal Affairs annual public lecture will be “Empowered To Make A Difference – The Older People’s Commissioner for Wales” which will be delivered by Ms Ruth Marks MBE, the Older People’s Commissioner for Wales.

The lecture will be held on Thursday, November 19th at 7pm in the Main Hall of the International Politics Department at Aberystwyth University. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Wales is the first system in the world to have created a Commissioner for Older People.

The Commissioner’s role is to ensure a strong voice to ensure that the needs of Older People are met, as well as being an ambassador and a source of information, advocacy and support for Older People, in the same way as the Children’s Commissioner serves the youngest members of society.

Accordingly, the Centre for Welsh Legal Affairs is pleased to welcome Ruth Marks to Aberystwyth to explain the significance of her groundbreaking new role.

The Centre for Welsh Legal Affairs forms part of the Department of Law and Criminology at Aberystwyth University. It was launched in January 1999 to consolidate, and provide a focus for, the Department’s expertise and work on the law as it applies within Wales and on general legal developments of relevance to Wales.

The establishment of the Centre was prompted by devolution, the setting up of the National Assembly for Wales and the emergence of a more distinct Welsh legal order. Work on the operation of devolution currently forms a large part of the Centre’s activities, both as regards the public law side concerning the structures and operations of the Assembly itself and the substantive law and policy developed by the Assembly.

Ruth Marks’s lecture, celebrating both the Centre’s tenth anniversary and the tenth anniversary of devolution is an example of how Wales is leading the way in championing of older people’s rights.

Further information regarding the Centre for Welsh Legal Affairs can be found on the Centre’s website:  http://www.aber.ac.uk/cwla/index.htm.