http://www.coe.int/documents/5492562/7044393/COE-Logo-Fil-BW.png/bb17a17e-5308-4fc0-929d-5c4baf3ab99d?t=1371222816000

CCJE-GT(2017)3

Strasbourg, 24 October 2017                                                                                           

WORKING GROUP OF THE

CONSULTATIVE COUNCIL OF EUROPEAN JUDGES

(CCJE-GT)

Report of the 33rd meeting

Rome, 7 – 9 June 2017

Document prepared by the Secretariat

Directorate General I - Human Rights and Rule of Law


 

I.          INTRODUCTION

1.         The Working Group of the Consultative Council of European Judges (CCJE-GT) held its 33rd meeting in Rome from 7 to 9 June 2017. The meeting was chaired by Mr Duro SESSA (Croatia), Vice-President of the CCJE.

2.         The agenda and the list of participants are appended to this report (Appendices I and II respectively).

II.       COMMUNICATION BY THE PRESIDENT, MEMBERS OF THE BUREAU AND WORKING GROUP OF THE CCJE

 

3.         The President opened the meeting by thanking Mr Raffaele SABATO (Italy) for his initiative and organisational efforts to organise this meeting, as well as the meeting of the CCJE Bureau and other events, in Rome and to be hosted by the High Council for the Judiciary of Italy.

4.         The President continued by informing the members of the Working Group on the meeting, earlier in the morning, of the Bureau and the topics discussed. He went on to refer to his participation in the debate on the 10th Annual Report on the supervision of the execution of judgments and decisions of the European Court of Human Rights[1], his forthcoming participation in an international high-level conference on the “Binding Effect of Judicial Decisions”[2] and some other events.

5.         Mr SESSA also took the floor and informed about activities during which he presented and used the CCJE Opinions and expertise[3].

6.         The President went on to brief the Working Group on the Bureau discussions as regards the follow-up to the report of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe – 2016 on the “State of democracy, human rights and the rule of law - a security imperative for Europe” which proposed to “develop the methodology and establish a regular in-house evaluation mechanism on the independence and impartiality of the judiciaries of the Council of Europe member states”[4]. In line with the decisions of the plenary meeting of the CCJE in 2016, the Bureau would prepare, on an annual basis, the report on judicial independence and impartiality in the Council of Europe member states[5].

7.         In this context, the members of the Working Group referred to the previously prepared Situation Reports of the CCJE and emphasised that the report on judicial independence and impartiality assigned by the Secretary General would be needed more than ever, taking into account the deteriorating situation concerning the independence of the judiciary in several countries, most notably in Poland and Turkey.

8.         The members of the Working Group also underlined that preparation of this report by the Bureau would involve a lot of work and effort and expressed their willingness to contribute to this process if needed.

9.         The President went on to inform the members of the Working Group on discussions of the Bureau regarding the questionnaire for gender equality prepared by Ms Aneta ARNAUDOVSKA («the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia»), CCJE Gender Equality Rapporteur for 2017[6].

10.      Ms ARNAUDOVSKA reported to the Working Group that the draft questionnaire was sent for coordination to the Council of Europe body responsible for gender equality. The draft questionnaire would further be improved and most probably be distributed to all CCJE members before the plenary. She would then process their responses. The Working Group thanked Ms ARNAUDOVSKA for taking on this important work.

11.      The preparation process of the 2017 CCJE Conference on the “Judicial integrity and corruption” was also discussed by the Working Group. The Conference would be organised by the Secretariat on the eve of the CCJE plenary meeting, on 7 November 2017. Since the topic of the Conference would be the same as the topic for the CCJE Opinion in 2018, the Conference would serve as a starting point for the elaboration of this Opinion. The Working Group supported the Bureau’s decisions as regards inviting, in addition to all CCJE members and observers, a number of the Council of Europe bodies and international organisations. 

III.      PREPARATION OF THE CCJE OPINION NO. 20 ON THE ROLE OF COURTS WITH RESPECT TO UNIFORM APPLICATION OF THE LAW

 

12.      Mr SESSA presented to the Working Group the draft Opinion No. 20, prepared by the CCJE expert, Professor Aleš GALIČ[7] (document CCJE(2017)4Prov), as well as the compilation of comments on this draft, prepared by the Secretariat (document CCJE-GT(2017)2). The Working Group members agreed that the draft Opinion constituted an excellent basis for developing the text and expressed their appreciation for the work of the CCJE expert. They proceeded to discuss in detail the relevant aspects of the draft Opinion and various issues.

13.      Mr George BIRMINGHAM (Ireland) spoke about the message which this Opinion, once adopted, would send to judges and representatives of other legal professions, and the corresponding paragraphs in the text.

14.      Mr SESSA agreed that the Opinion would be addressed not only to judges. The uniform application of law is a must but it’s not absolute. The Opinion should come up with some innovative considerations and thoughts.

15.      Mr Raffaele SABATO (Italy) spoke about the structure of the Opinion, and various considerations regarding public and private interest.

16.      Mr Mats MELIN (Sweden) underlined a very good work done by the expert, and mentioned that perhaps precisions in some parts may be needed advocating for the modern role of Supreme Courts choosing best cases and guiding their application; and indicating that the role of individual judges was to adjudicate cases rather than to give general guidance.

17.      Ms Nina BETETTO (Slovenia) mentioned that, on the one hand, the importance of the case law was well recognised by everybody, however, there was the potential danger of becoming too rigid.

18.      Mr Orlando AFONSO (Portugal) raised certain concerns to avoid such an impression that the CCJE was telling how the judiciary should be organised.

19.      At the end of the meeting, the Working Group agreed on the required improvements of the text of the Opinion and instructed the Secretariat to integrate all comments, after which to send the resulting text to the members of the Bureau and the Working Group for final reading and other possible comments. After that, the Secretariat would prepare the consolidated draft with their final comments integrated, and send it to all members of the CCJE for their comments which would be discussed during the plenary meeting on 8-10 November 2017.

IV.     OTHER ITEMS

20.      The members of the Working Group, as well as of the Bureau, expressed their appreciation for the invitation of the High Council for the Judiciary of Italy and its generous support for holding the meeting of the Working Group and other events planned by the High Council within this framework, in Rome. They also thanked in particular Mr SABATO for his initiative and organisational efforts to organise these events in Rome[8].


APPENDIX I

AGENDA / ORDRE DU JOUR

1.      Opening of the meeting / Ouverture de la réunion

2.      Adoption of the agenda / Adoption de l’ordre du jour

3.      Communication by the President, members of the Bureau and the Secretariat / Communication du Président, des membres du Bureau et du Secrétariat

4.      Preparation of the draft Opinion No. 20 on « the role of courts with respect to uniform application of the law » / Préparation du projet de l’Avis No. 20 sur « le rôle des tribunaux dans l’application uniforme du droit  »

5.      Any other business / Divers


APPENDIX II

LIST OF PARTICIPANTS

MEMBERS OF THE CCJE-GT / MEMBRES DU CCJE-GT

Mr Orlando AFONSO, Juge à la Cour Suprême, ALMADA, PORTUGAL

Ms Aneta ARNAUDOVSKA, Judge, Director of the Academy of Judges and Prosecutors, SKOPJE, “THE FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA” / “L’EX-REPUBLIQUE YOUGOSLAVE DE MACEDOINE”

Ms Nina BETETTO, Judge, Vice-President of the Supreme Court, LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA / SLOVENIE

Mr José Francisco COBO SÀENZ, Magistrat, President of the 2nd Seccion at the Audiencia Provincial (Navarra), PAMPLONA, SPAIN / ESPAGNE

(apologised/excusé)

Ms Anke EILERS, Presiding Judge, Court of Appeal, Cologne, KÖLN, GERMANY / ALLEMAGNE

Mr Viktor GORODOVENKO, President of the Court of Appeal of Zaporizhzhia region, ZAPORIZHZHIA, UKRAINE

Mr Bart VAN LIEROP, Vice-President of the Administrative High Court for Trade and Industry (College van Beroep voor het bedrijfsleven), THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS / PAYS-BAS

Ms Kathrin KLETT, Juge fédéral suprême, 1ère Cour de Droit Civil, LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND / SUISSE

Ms Aida Rodica POPA, Juge, Docteur en Droit, Section Criminelle de la Haute Cour de Cassation et de Justice, BUCAREST, ROMANIA / ROUMANIE 

(apologised/excusé)

Mr Gerhard REISSNER, Vice-President of the Austrian Association of Judges, President of the District Court of Floridsdorf, VIENNA, AUSTRIA / AUTRICHE

Mr Raffaele SABATO, Councillor of the Supreme Court of Cassation, NAPLES, ITALY / ITALIE

Mr Vigintas VIŠINSKIS, Juge of the Court of Appeal of the Republic of Lithuania, VILNIUS, LITHUANIA / LITUANIE

(apologised/excusé)

SCIENTIFIC EXPERT / EXPERT SCIENTIFIQUE

Mr Aleš GALIČ, Ph.D., Professor of Law, Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana, LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA / SLOVENIE

MEMBERS OF THE CCJE-BU / MEMBRES DU CCJE-BU

Mr Nils A. ENGSTAD, Judge, Hålogaland Court of Appeal, TROMSØ, NORWAY / NORVEGE

(President of the CCJE / Président du CCJE)

Mr Duro SESSA, Justice of the Supreme Court, ZAGREB, CROATIA / CROATIE

(Vice-President of the CCJE / Vice-Président du CCJE)

 

Mr George BIRMINGHAM, Judge, Court of Appeal, DUBLIN,IRELAND / IRLANDE

Mr Mats MELIN, President of the Swedish Supreme Administrative Court, STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN / SUEDE

COUNCIL OF EUROPE’S SECRETARIAT /

SECRETARIAT DU CONSEIL DE L’EUROPE

Directorate General I – Human Rights and Rule of Law / Division for the Independence and Efficiency of Justice

Direction générale I – Droits de l’Homme et Etat de Droit / Division pour l’indépendance et l’efficacité de la justice

E-mail: [email protected]

Mr Stéphane LEYENBERGER, Head of the Division, Secretary of the CCJE / Chef de la Division, Secrétaire du CCJE

Tel: + 33 (0)3 88 41 34 12, E-mail: [email protected]

Mr Artashes MELIKYAN, Co-Secretary of the CCJE / Co-Secrétaire du CCJE

(Tel: + 33 (0)3 90 21, E-mail: [email protected]

Ms Anna KHROMOVA, Assistante / Assistant

Tel: +33 (0)3 88 41 21 68; Fax: +33 (0)3 90 21 50 33, E-mail: [email protected]

INTERPRETERS / INTERPRETES

Ms Paola DE ROSA

Mr Oreste D’IPPOLITO

Ms Selene PEDETTA PECCHIA



[1] For more information, see the report on the 23rd meeting of the CCJE Bureau (document CCJE-BU(2017)8), para 4.

[2] Ibid., para 5.

[3] Ibid., para 6.

[4] See the Report’s Executive Summary, proposed actions and recommendations, judicial independence: 3rd bullet point (page 7).

[5] For more information, see the report on the 23rd meeting of the CCJE Bureau (document CCJE-BU(2017)8), paras 10-13.

[6] Ibid., paras 14-15.

[7] Dr. sc., professor of law, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.

[8] Please also see para 3 of the present report.