in memoriam

Remembering Chris Bovis

Pedro Telles

01 Sep 2025 — 1 min read

I received an email earlier this morning informing me of Chris Bovis passing and I am taking it as an opportunity to reflect on my memories with him. To me he was always generous and gracious and I remain grateful for his help and encouragement over the years.

My first memory of Chris is maybe from around 2005. I was doing my Masters' back in Portugal and had found some of his articles or book chapters that were relevant to my dissertation. There was absolutely no way I could find them in Portugal. Googling him, I noticed he had spent some time at my law school. So I just sent him an email out of the blue kindly asking if he could help me finding them, which he did.

I met Chris last in March at the ERA Trier conference and found him in good spirits despite looking unwell. We talked about life, classic cars and the beauty of flying KLM into small airports, such as Cardiff in my case or Norwich his. All this while Heathrow was closed down due to a fire forcing me to spend another night in Trier. I will forever remember his assistance in springing a trap on a CJEU judge at that conference, but let's keep the details about it for a chat over a nice beer or glass of wine.

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