CRYSTAL SCALES OF JUSTICE PRIZE CEREMONY 2014

AVEIRO, PORTUGAL

SLIDE 1 LEARNING EU LAW ON THE JOB

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am very honoured to address you on behalf of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal in The Netherlands. Our Court has been awarded a special mention at the finals of the contest for the Crystal Scales of Justice Prize. It is a great pleasure to meet you all here in Strasbourg. And again we especially greet our colleagues and former competitors from Estonia, Germany and Spain. Please allow me to introduce our project.

SLIDE 2 EUROPE: OVERVIEW

Our project aims at a better understanding of European law – especially the case law from the 2 big European courts. The European Court of Human Rights here in Strasbourg and the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

We have therefore developed a special website called European Courts. On our website we publish montly newsletters and weekly updates of European case law. We use this information to organise incompany trainings in our court. I will come back to this.

But first I will show you 2 pictures to explain why my court finds it of great importance to enhance the knowledge and the application of European law.

SLIDE 3 INSPIRATION 1: REMBRANDT

The first picture is made by a very well-known Dutch painter: Rembrandt van Rijn. You will find it in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. This painting  is based on ancient Greek mythology. You may have heard about the story.

Zeus was in love with a beautiful princess called Europa. He tried to seduce her. Therefore he changed himself into a white bull. The princess was playing outside and took interest into the beautiful animal. She jumped on his back and the bull – that was really the God Zeus -  swam away with the princess to the continent. (By the way: I don’t know if this is a good example of the EU freedom of movement of people. It was more a case of abduction.)

I often show this painting by Rembrandt. Because in a nice way it reminds us of our rich European cultural heritage.

But it also reminds us of the common background of he peoples in Europe that often has been troublesome. The Convention on human rights and the European Union were Europe’s answer to World Wars I and II. The atrocities of the last 100 years should never happen again. And to a very high extend Europe has succeeded in this ambition.

This has inspired us to help further developing the Rule of Law in Europe by making European law better accessible to everyone.

SLIDE 4 INSPIRATION 2: EUROPEAN LAW

This is another famous picture of Europe. However it was not painted by Rembrandt. It is a photograph I took from one of my colleague-judges when he was preparing a court case involving European law.

As recent surveys show: lawyers, judges and prosecutors find European law extremely difficult. European Law is considered to be abstract and remote from the daily practice on the workfloor of our national courts. European law shows up in places where you don’t expect it to be. Not only in civil and tax law, but also more and in criminal and administrative law.

But no one will deny the growing importance of European law today for our daily business in the courts. Therefore it is of the utmost importance that in the justice area in Europe we make it easier for judges, prosecutors and lawyers to keep up with developments in European Law.

SLIDE 5 EUROPEAN COURTS

One of the major complaints about European law is that it is hard to find up to date information on the case law of the 2 European Courts: the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg and the Human Rights Court in Strasbourg. Our website called European Courts (europeancourts.blogspot,com) aims at making it easier for law practitioners to access the case law of both courts.

But the information on our website is also accessible by students, law professors. Our website now attracts more than 5000 readers every month. Which is quite a lot for a website specialised in law. We have many visitors from abroad: especially the UK, France, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Spain, Turkey, and even China.

The name European Courts was chosen to underline that nowadays all courts in Europe are ‘European Courts’. Because all national judges must apply European law. Whether it is EU law or the European Convention on human rights law.

On our website you will find 3 kinds of information:

1.   a review of all case law from the Strasbourg and Luxembourg court every month, in Dutch;

2.   weekly updates in English of last week’s case law from the Strasbourg Human Rights court, and

3.   specialised Articles in English on European Law issues.

SLIDE 6 OUR NEWSLETTERS

Together with a team of law clerks and judges we produce a newsletter every month with all relevant European case law. Not only from the Luxembourg court but also from the Strasbourg court. We find it important that law clerks and judges themselves are involved in the process of selecting and interpreting with European case law. In this way we get acquainted with the substance of European law and we can build up our own expertise. But at the same time this better knowledge of European law results in a much more efficient legal system. In this way we make it easier for judges to aplly European law.

The most relevant cases are publicized in our newsletter Rechtspraak Europa (meaning: ‘case law from Europe’). Our newsletter is distributed not only in the Amsterdam Court of Appeal but in all other courts in The Netherlands and in the Flemish speaking courts in Belgium. Our newsletters are of course also being published on our website European Courts. So every one has access.

SLIDE 7 OUR WEEKLY UPDATES

Apart from our monthly updates our website publishes – in English - weekly updates of the case law of the Human Rights Court in Strasbourg.

We do not ask money for the information that we share. We share because we care. We find it important that everyone who is interested in the Rule of Law has easy access to our information.

SLIDE 8 OUR USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

As you may have noticed we find it important to make use of social media. Our newsletters and weekly updates on our website are announced on Twitter. In this way we share our content also with others, like lawyers, law professors, students, special interest groups and press media.

SLIDE 9 OUR INCOMPANY TRAININGS

Of course selecting and sharing European case law is not enough. In the end it all comes down to the people on the workfloor – the judges – that have to apply European law correctly. Therefore the Amsterdam court uses the content of its newsletters on European law for regular in company trainings in our court. During these occasions judges and law clerks together inform their colleagues about new and recent developments. Our quarterly trainings are very well visited.

SLIDE 10 ZEN

Our ambition is to make the work of judges, prosecutors and lawyers easier. Of course we hope that one day we will all feel Zen about European law. In the meantime we may not be able to make European law much nicer for everyone, but we can at least try to make it easier.

SLIDE 9 FIN

Ladies and gentlemen,

I conclude my presentation. My court believes in the future of Europe and we believe that today is about sharing and learning. In this way we hope to contribute to the efficiency of justice throughout Europe.

I thank you very much for your kind attention!

Marc de Werd – [email protected]

Judge in the Amsterdam Court of Appeal