Strasbourg, 29 October 2008

CEPEJ-SATURN(2008)6

European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice

(CEPEJ)

Groupe de Pilotage of the SATURN Centre for judicial time management

 (CEPEJ-SATURN)

4th meeting - Strasbourg, 9 – 10 October 2008 - Meeting report

Report prepared by the Secretariat

Directorate General of Human Rights and Legal Affairs

1.    The Groupe de pilotage of the SATURN Centre for the study and analysis of judicial time management held its fourth meeting in Strasbourg on 9 and 10 October 2008, with Mr Jacques BÜHLER in the chair (Switzerland).

2.    The agenda appears in Appendix I and the list of participants in Appendix II to this report.

1.   Information from the Secretariat

3.    The Secretariat informed the Group that the CEPEJ had adopted the Report on "European judicial systems – Edition 2008" at its 11th plenary meeting (2 – 3 July 2008).  The report would be made public on 8 October at a press conference in Paris, once it had been presented to the Committee of Ministers on that day.

2.   Use of the replies to the questionnaire on common case categories, judicial time-frames and delays

4.    The scientific expert, Mr Marco FABRI, presented the conclusions drawn from the processing of data on judicial time management sent in by 36 pilot courts representing 27 member States[1]. There had been few additional replies since the Group's last meeting.  The Group warmly thanked Mr Marco FABRI and his colleague Mr Domenico PISCITELLI for their excellent work in analysing and synthesising the information.

5.    The main conclusions of their analysis are appended to the present report.  These conclusions would be presented to the pilot courts at the next plenary meeting of the network (Catania, 24 October 2008).

6.    The members of the Group made recommendations aimed at improving the quality and utility of the report.

7.    The analysis of replies regarding the treatment of cases in practice would be inserted as an appendix to the report. It was agreed that the lengths of proceedings would be calculated in civil (John STACEY), criminal (Marco FABRI) and administrative cases (Jacques BÜHLER) on the basis of the replies regarding the three cases in practice.

8.    It was agreed that the scientific expert would supplement and correct the report by mid-November 2008 in line with discussion at the present meeting.  The report was to be considered an internal working document, serving to build the tools necessary for the development of a European observatory for judicial time-frames.  It would be presented at the 12th plenary meeting of the CEPEJ.

9.    The members of the Group recommended that the future activities of the CEPEJ both in the evaluation of judicial systems (CEPEJ-GT-EVAL) and the observation of procedural time-frames (SATURN) concentrate on the four types of case studied by the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL: litigious divorce, employment dismissal, robbery and Intentional homicide, in order to consolidate knowledge of procedural time-frames.  Where necessary, the central statistics services and the courts would have to be encouraged to reorganise their statistics system in order to supply the data for these categories of case.

10.  The Group also favoured the systematic use of the three calculation formulae developed for the 2008 report on "European judicial systems": clearance rate, case turnover ratio and disposition time.

3. Draft guidelines [green book] for judicial time management

11.  The Group analysed the draft guidelines prepared by Mr Alan UZELAC (CEPEJ(2008)4Rev), warmly thanking him for this high-quality preparatory work.  It was agreed that Mr UZELAC would amend the body of the text in accordance with discussion at the present meeting.

12.  The aim of the guidelines was to gradually enableCouncil of Europe member States to collect the same data on length of proceedings.

13.  An appendix to the guidelines would set out blanket rules for calculating and monitoring the length of judicial proceedings, making the calculation formulae available to courts and the competent national bodies in the form of Excel tables.

14.  It was agreed to propose simple tables restricted to the four categories of cases studied for the evaluation of judicial systems by the CEPEJ: number of pending cases at the beginning of the period, new incoming cases, completed cases, number of pending cases at the end of the period.

15.  Following discussion, the experts agreed that it was difficult to take the pre- and post-judicial phases of procedures into account and that, at this stage, the dates on which cases were registered with the court and the judicial decision was pronounced were to be taken into account.  However, they did stress the need to express their wish in the document that, for the future development of the SATURN Observatory, the statistical study of the criminal case chain include the non-judicial phases of the procedure.

16.  The Group instructed the Secretariat to amend the draft appendix in the light of discussion at the present meeting.  The appendices would be supplemented by Excel tables including the calculation formulae presented by Mr Jacques BÜHLER.

4. Preparation of the plenary meeting of the Network of Pilot courts

17.  The 3rd plenary meeting of the Network of Pilot courts of the CEPEJ would be held in Catania (Italy) on 24 October, within the framework of European Day of Justice.  Presentation and discussion of the activities of the SATURN Centre were on the agenda.  The Group would be represented by its Chair, Mr Jacques BÜHLER, as well as MM Irakli ADEISHVILI, Gaby EMANS, Giacomo OBERTO and John STACEY.  Mr Marco FABRI would also take part in the round table on judicial time management and would present the main conclusions of the processing of the data supplied by the pilot courts.

18.  It was agreed that the Chair of the Group would encourage the pilot courts to use the statistical tools contained in the guidelines and organise their system in such a way as to be able to gather the information required on the lengths of proceedings in the four types of case chosen by the CEPEJ for its evaluation process (litigious divorce, employment dismissal, robbery and intentional homicide).  Feedback was expected from the pilot courts by 2010.

19.  The Secretariat said that the "Crystal Scales of Justice" European prize would be awarded for the third time; 38 entries had been received, from 15 different member States.

5.   Follow-up of activities

20.  The Group recommended that the terms of reference of the SATURN Centre be gradually adapted to give it the function of a permanent observatory of judicial time-frames.  The report prepared by MM FABRI and PISCITELLI should serve as the basis for developing future activities.

21.  Within that framework the questionnaire on time-frames sent to the pilot courts could be revised and simplified to make it a fixed questionnaire serving as a base instrument for the observatory.  It should include the issue of standstill time.  There could also be an electronic version of the questionnaire.

22.  Work should initially focus on the four aforementioned case categories.