CCJE-BU(2016)5

Strasbourg, 14 October 2016

BUREAU OF THE CONSULTATIVE COUNCIL

OF EUROPEAN JUDGES

(CCJE-BU)

Report of the ad hocmeeting

Strasbourg, 2 September 2016

Document prepared by the Secretariat

Directorate General I – Human Rights and Rule of Law


I.          INTRODUCTION

    1.        The Bureau of the Consultative Council of European Judges (CCJE) held an ad hoc meeting in Strasbourg on 2 September 2016. The meeting was chaired by Mr Nils ENGSTAD (Norway), President of the CCJE.

    2.        The following members of the Bureau were also present:

·                Mr Duro SESSA (Croatia), Vice-President of the CCJE;

·                Ms Nina BETTETO (Slovenia);

·                Mr Jean-Claude WIWINIUS (Luxembourg).

    3.        Mr Bart van LIEROP (The Netherlands) and Mr Gerhard REISSNER (Austria), members of the CCJE Working Group, also participated in the meeting. The main purpose of the meeting was to finalise the draft Opinion No. 19 on the role of court presidents.

 

II.         PREPARATION OF THE CCJE OPINION No. 19 ON THE ROLE OF COURT PRESIDENTS           

    4.        The participants of the meeting worked on the latest draft Opinion No. 19 (document CCJE(2016)2Prov6) prepared by the Secretariat, in which all the comments of the members of the Bureau, the Working Group and the Secretariat, submitted after the meeting of the Working Group in Madrid on 15-17 June 2016, had been integrated. The participants of the meeting underlined that this document constituted a good working basis for finalising the draft Opinion in order to present it to the CCJE members for final comments before the CCJE plenary meeting scheduled on 8-10 November 2016.

    5.        In the course of the discussions that followed, the participants of the meeting examined in detail the relevant issues relating to the substance of the draft Opinion. They focused on the court presidents’ judicial and managerial work from the point of view of independence of judges, both external and internal, their role as regards other judges and court staff, organisational structure of courts, terms of office for court presidents and evaluation of their work. At the end of the meeting, the participants also discussed the role of presidents of Supreme Courts.

    6.        As a result of the meeting, the draft Opinion was significantly improved. It was also decided to develop it further after the meeting through co-operation between the Secretariat and the Bureau. In particular, the Secretariat was charged with finalising the chapter on the role of presidents of Supreme Courts. As regards the whole text of the Opinion, the Secretariat was charged with introducing references to the relevant case-law of the European Court of Human Rights. After that, Mr SESSA would revise and develop further the Secretariat’s contribution and forward the draft to the members of the Bureau, as well as to Mr van LIEROP and Mr REISSNER for final comments.

    7.        It was decided to send the final draft to the CCJE members on 3 October 2016 for their comments before the CCJE plenary meeting and to request them to send these comments before 21 October 2016.

III.        DISCUSSION OF TOPICS FOR FUTURE CCJE OPINIONS AND FOR THE CCJE CONFERENCE    

    8.        The participants of the meeting also discussed the topics for the CCJE Opinions in 2017 and 2018, and for the CCJE conference. After detailed exchange of views, they decided to suggest to the plenary meeting of the CCJE to adopt the topic of the uniform application of law for the Opinion No. 20 in 2017, and the topic of integrity and corruption for the Opinion No. 21 in 2018.

    9.        As regards the CCJE conference, the participants of the meeting discussed the possibility to hold it in 2017. The Secretariat confirmed that budget would be available for such event. This conference could be combined with the plenary meeting, taking place in Strasbourg.

  10.        After discussion on the topic of the conference, the participants of the meeting decided to suggest to the plenary meeting to adopt the topic of integrity and corruption. Since the conference would be planned at the same time with the CCJE plenary meeting in 2017, it would thus allow for an exchange of opinions as starting point for elaboration of the Opinion in 2018.

VI.       FOLLOW-UP TO THE 2016 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE ON THE “STATE OF DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE RULE OF LAW - A SECURITY IMPERATIVE FOR EUROPE” AND THE SITUATION IN TURKEY AND POLAND

  11.        According to the CCJE Terms of Reference for 2016-2017 (document CM(2015)131 addfinal of 2 December 2015), the CCJE can “provide targeted cooperation at the request of member States, CCJE members, judicial bodies or relevant associations of judges, to enable States to comply with Council of Europe standards concerning judges”.

  12.        Taking into account the situation in Turkey after the attempted “coup d’État” in July 2016, and the reports made that a large number of judges had been removed from their offices, the President of the CCJE, on behalf of the Bureau of the CCJE, sent a letter to the Secretary General on 27 July 2016, asking “to entrust the CCJE and other relevant bodies within the framework of the Council of Europe with the task of assessing the situation in Turkey with regard to judicial independence, rule of law and human rights, and proposing common actions to be taken by the Council of Europe in this respect”.

  13.        The members of the Bureau also made reference to the Statement of the Bureau of the CCJE adopted in July 2016 after the attempted “coup d’État”, and agreed that the CCJE should continue to make its expertise and standards available in such situations.

  14.        The members of the Bureau had also been informed that the President of Poland had recently refused to appoint 10 judges. For that reason, they were asked by the Polish Association of Judges to issue an opinion about this situation. It was agreed that, as usually, the Bureau of the CCJE would proceed to prepare such opinion.

 

  15.        More generally, as regards the follow-up to the Secretary General’s 2016 Report on the “State of democracy, human rights and the rule of law - a security imperative for Europe”, the members of the Bureau agreed that it was a difficult and sensitive task to try to assess the independence of judges and that, in any case, this could not be done through quantitative indicators. Some tools and tendencies exist in this perspective, however such an assessment could give an inexact picture of the situation with the risk to discredit the work of the CCJE, the CEPEJ and the Council of Europe at large.