Strasbourg, 10 September 2010
CEPEJ(2010)5
européAN COMMISSION FOR THE EFFICIENCY OF Justice (CEPEJ)
15th plenary meeting (9-10 September 2010)
Abridged report
A. FOREWORD
The European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) held its 15th plenary meeting in Strasbourg on 9 – 10 September 2010. The meeting was chaired by Mr Fausto de SANTIS (Italy).
The agenda appears in the Appendix.
B. LIST OF ITEMS DISCUSSED AND DECISIONS TAKEN BY THE CEPEJ
1. Information by the President of the CEPEJ and the Secretariat
The CEPEJ
§ took note of the information given by its President, its members and its Secretariat who participated in various fora where the work of the CEPEJ was introduced and discussed;
2. Recent developments in the judicial field in the Council of Europe member states
§ took note of the information given by representatives of member states on recent domestic developments in the judicial field (Germany, Ireland, Norway, Russian Federation, Spain, Turkey) and invited its members to forward to the Secretariat written information and useful references which could be included in the area "country profiles" of its web site;
3. 2009 Activity Report of the CEPEJ
§ approved the 2009 Activity Report of the CEPEJ (CEPEJ(2010)4) and decided to forward it to the Committee of Ministers for approval;
4. Evaluation process of judicial systems
§ welcomed the work achieved jointly by the members of the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL chaired by Mr Jean-Paul JEAN (France), the scientific-expert, Ms Natalia DELGRANDE and the Secretariat to prepare the draft report and thanked them warmly for the efforts dedicated to this exercise within a strict timeframe; it thanked the national correspondents who had coordinated the national answers to the evaluation Scheme and had fully cooperated with the experts so that they could submit a preparatory work of quality;
§ noted with satisfaction that the report includes the results of a survey carried out in 45 European states and that it was a unique exercise considering the number of fields addressed and countries concerned; underlined that the report took place in the framework of a regular process enabling the defining of a core of essential quantitative and qualitative data to be collected and processed similarly in all member states;
§ adopted the "Report on European judicial systems – Edition 2010" (CEPEJ(2010)xx), provided that:
- comments could be indicated by the delegations to the Secretariat before 17 September 2010 and taking into account the discussions during the present meeting;
- further comments could be drafted by the experts of the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL, under the authority of the CEPEJ Bureau, who were instructed to do so to facilitate the reading and understanding of the statistical data; these comments would be made available to the members of the CEPEJ on the restricted web site on 23 September 2010;
§ decided to forward the final report as soon as possible to the Ministers' Deputies so that they can read it before the official publication; noted that the Ministers' Deputies were due to take note of the report at their meeting of 17 November 2010;
§ decided that the Report would remain confidential until its official publication to take place on 25 October 2010 within the framework of the European Day of Justice and invited all its members and observers to strictly respect this rule of confidentiality so as to ensure the relevance and coherence of the publication by the Council of Europe;
§ instructed the experts of the CEPEJ-GT-EVALto prepare an overview of the report to facilitate its understanding and reading; this overview would be submitted on 23 September 2010 to the CEPEJ for approval, through a written procedure, and published together with the report;
§ instructed the Secretariat to organise the appropriate publication and dissemination of the report, including through its website, a from 25 October 2010;
§ decided to publish in extenso, on its website, all the individual answers of the member states to the evaluation Scheme; therefore it invited each delegation to check that the national answers appearing on the CEPEJ website had indeed been updated and, where appropriate, to submit to the Secretariat a consolidated version of these answers before 15 October 2010; agreed that a state which would not wish to make its data public could request it before 15 October 2010;
§ agreed to pursue the evaluation exercise within the framework of a new cycle, while keeping a biennial timeframe; therefore instructed the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL, in cooperation with the Steering Group of the SATURN Centre – as regards lengths of proceedings - to study the opportunity to revise some questions of the evaluation scheme and entrusted its Secretariat to adapt the electronic version of the evaluation scheme so as to take into account the comments by the national correspondents and the CEPEJ's members;
§ agreed, in accordance with its medium-term activity programme, to pursue the analysis of the facts and figures presented in the report, including by opening the exploitation of the data to researchers who would wish to benefit from the scientific support of the CEPEJ, according to modalities to be defined with the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL, under the authority of the CEPEJ Bureau;
5. Judicial time management
§ took note of the work carried out by the Group de pilotage of the SATURN Centre and instructed it to pursue its work through quantitative and qualitative approaches;
6. Quality of justice
§ approved the Study: "Quality management in courts and in the judicial organisations in 8 Council of Europe Member states" (CEPEJ (2010)3);
decided to forward it to the Committee of Ministers, the CCJE, the CCPE and other relevant committees of the Council of Europe so that they can make good use of it;
decided to publish the Study within the framework of the Series "CEPEJ Studies", together with a preface to be drafted by the Chariman of the CEPEJ-GT-QUAL;
invited its members to ensure a wide dissemination of it among the relevant national institutions and organisations;
instructed the CEPEJ-GT-QUALto organise the use and the follow up of this Study within the framework of its work;
§ approved the Report on the realisation of the Court user satisfaction survey in the Council of Europe member states (CEPEJ(2010)2) and decided to publish it within the framework of the Series "CEPEJ Studies";
adopted the Handbook on the realisation of the Court user satisfaction survey in the Council of Europe Member states (CEPEJ(2010)1), decided to forward it to the Committee of Ministers, the CCJE, the CCPE and other relevant committees of the Council of Europe so that they can make good use of it and invited its members to ensure a wide dissemination of it among the relevant national institutions and organisations;
instructed the CEPEJ-GT-QUAL to organise its implementation among CEPEJ's pilot courts and to propose possible amendments to these documents according to the result of this exercise;
7. Targeted cooperation of the CEPEJ with its member states
§ approved the report prepared by the experts appointed by the Bureau on "Performance study of the judicial department of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (CEPEJ-COOP(2010)1);
§ agreed to cooperate with the Ministry of Justice of the Montenegro for the "Analysis of rationalisation of the court network";
8. Relations between the CEPEJ and the other bodies of the Council of Europe
§ took note of the information on the activities of the Consultative Council of European Judges (CCJE), Steering Committee of Human Rights (CDDH) and appreciated the good cooperation with these bodies;
9. Co-operation with the European Union
§ took note of the information given by the representatives of Spain and Belgium, speaking on behalf of the outgoing and incoming presidencies of the European Union, on the recent and foreseen developments within the Union in the field of justice;
§ invited its members to forward to the Secretariat all the information on the celebration of the
8th European Day of Justice in October 2010;
§ noted with satisfaction that 50 candidatures had been submitted for the Crystal Scales of Justice which will be awarded in Ljubljana on 25 October 2010, concerning for the first time both civil and criminal matters;
10. Other items of the agenda
§ decided to postpone the other items on the agenda to the 16th plenary meeting.