Strasbourg, 20 November 2008

CEPEJ-GT-EVAL(2008)10

European Commission for the Efficency of Justice (CEPEJ)

Working Group on the Evaluation of Judicial Systems (CEPEJ-GT-EVAL)

11th meeting, 6 – 7 November 2008 - Meeting report

Report prepared by the Secretariat

Directorate General of Human Rights and Legal Affairs

The CEPEJ-GT-EVAL:

-       called on members of the CEPEJ to analyse their countries' 2006 data, comparing them with countries which they considered similar; it proposed re-launching the study initiated upon the publication of the previous report so that each member state could identify the countries and judicial systems which it thought could be compared with its own;

-       recommended carrying out in-depth studies, based on the 2008 edition of the report, concerning  the organisation of the courts ("judicial map" and courts' internal organisation); single judges and panels of judges; lawyers' role in judicial proceedings; organisation of court clerk offices;

-       proposed that a study session should be organised in 2009 on the theme of funding of the courts, with a view to possible subsequent, more detailed work by the CEPEJ;

-       strongly recommended maintaining the current frequency of the evaluation process, i.e. publication of an evaluation report every two years; invited the national correspondents to inform the Secretariat before 1 March 2009 of the questions they thought they would be unable to answer; invited its members carefully to re-read the explanatory note on the evaluation scheme and to submit, by 1 March 2009, proposals for its improvement; asked the Secretariat to prepare draft revised versions of the evaluation scheme and the explanatory note before the Group's next meeting; also asked the Secretariat to improve the electronic version of the questionnaire;

-       confirmed the usefulness of the exchange and peer evaluation process concerning judicial statistics systems, which it recommended pursuing by organising three new visits in 2009;

-       finalised the draft guidelines on judicial statistics (CEPEJ(2008)11Prov) and decided to transmit them to the CEPEJ for adoption at its plenary meeting; 

-       recommended that, with regard to measuring the length of proceedings, the member states should be encouraged to organise their statistics systems so as to be able to:

§  collect information on four categories of cases: litigious divorces, employment dismissals, robberies, unintentional homicides,

§  calculate the following three ratios: clearance rate, disposition time and efficiency rate;

-       agreed to pursue its discussions on the calculation of courts' efficiency and performance indicators so as gradually to establish indicators suitable for use in practice on the basis of the information available in the courts, thereby enabling the CEPEJ to progress towards genuine evaluation of courts' capacity to manage the flow and backlog of cases.


1.    The Working Group on the Evaluation of Judicial Systems (CEPEJ-GT-EVAL) of the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) held its 11th meeting at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg on 6 and 7 November 2008 with Mr Jean-Paul JEAN (France) in the Chair.

2.    The agenda and the list of participants appear respectively in Appendices I and II to this report.

      1.   Information by the Secretariat

3.    The Secretariat informed the Group that the CEPEJ had adopted the report "European judicial systems - Edition 2008" at its 11th plenary meeting (2 – 3 July 2008). The report had been made public on 8 October at a press conference in Paris (in which Fausto de SANTIS and Jean-Paul JEAN had participated) after having been presented to the Committee of Ministers the same day.

4.    The 3rd plenary meeting of the CEPEJ's network of pilot courts had been held in Catania (Italy) on 24 October 2008. On this occasion the Chair of the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL, Jean-Paul JEAN, had presented the report to the pilot courts, giving them guidance as to how it should be read, particularly concerning the need to compare only countries which could be regarded as similar. During the discussion the following questions had been raised inter alia:

§  the CEPEJ had been invited to study, on the basis of the information contained in the report, the role of lawyers in judicial proceedings and the correlation between the number of lawyers and the courts' activity volume;

§  attention had been drawn to the need to ensure the indicators' consistency and credibility, for instance the necessity to take into consideration normative obligations (procedural law) when addressing the issue of the length of proceedings.

5.    The Secretariat informed the Group about the work being done within the GT-QUAL, whose draft checklist for promoting the quality of justice and the courts had been adopted by the CEPEJ.  The CEPEJ-GT-QUAL was carrying out a wide-ranging study of quality evaluation systems in a number of member states, was drawing up a handbook on conducting satisfaction surveys of justice system users and was working on the question of contractualisation of judicial process.

6.    The Steering Group of the SATURN Centre had also finalised guidelines for judicial time management, which were fully consistent with the work being done by the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL (see below).

2.   Implementation of the 2006 - 2008 evaluation cycle

Communication strategy concerning the report

7.    The Secretariat announced that the report had received very broad media coverage (press, radio, television, Internet) in a number of member states. A regularly updated press review was being kept. A seminar to present the report had notably been organised at the Netherlands Ministry of Justice (Pim ALBERS). It had also been presented to the pilot courts (see above). The dissemination of information on the report would be evaluated at the CEPEJ's plenary meeting.

8.    The CEPEJ-GT-EVAL underlined that each member of the CEPEJ was responsible for communicating concerning the report. It called on members of the CEPEJ to analyse their countries' data, comparing them with countries which they considered similar, along the lines of the analysis prepared by Jean-Paul JEAN for France (this specific presentation can be accessed on the CEPEJ web-site).

9.    The CEPEJ-GT-EVAL proposed re-launching the study initiated by Georg STAWA upon the publication of the previous report so that each member state could identify the countries and judicial systems which it thought could be compared with its own.

Preparation of in-depth studies

10.   The CEPEJ-GT-QUAL recommended again carrying out in-depth studies, based on the 2008 edition of the report, on the following themes:

Studies to be performed within the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL

-       organisation of the courts: "judicial map", size and specialisation of courts, distribution of tasks and types of cases among the courts, courts' internal organisation;

Studies to be performed by research teams in association with the competent professional bodies

-       single judges and panels of judges; the European Association of Judges and the MEDEL should be involved in this study;

-       lawyers' role in judicial proceedings: prevention of abuses in judicial proceedings, lawyers' links with the courts (including via the new information and communication technologies), determination of lawyers' fees; the CCBE should be involved in this study;

-       organisation of court clerk offices: the roles of the various categories of staff within court clerk offices, relations between judges and non-judge staff; the EUR should be involved in this study.

11.  The Group instructed the Secretariat to launch a call for projects on the same basis as that issued following the publication of the 2006 edition of the evaluation report.

12.  The CEPEJ-GT-EVAL also proposed that a study session should be organised in 2009 on the theme of funding of the courts, with a view to possible subsequent, more detailed work by the CEPEJ, taking into account inter alia the CCJE's Opinion No. 2 on the funding and management of courts.

 

      3.   Intermediary process through the list of key data

13.  The Group instructed the Secretariat to remind the member states that those which so wished could update their key data for 2007. States not members of the eurozone should indicate the exchange rate as at 1 January 2008.

4.   Implementation of the new evaluation cycle

Recommendation on the timeframe

14.  The experts underlined the need for the member states to become accustomed to using the same indicators on a systematic basis and to working with the CEPEJ's evaluation scheme. They therefore strongly recommended maintaining the current frequency of the evaluation process, i.e. publication of an evaluation report every two years. They accordingly proposed that a new cycle be launched in 2009 culminating, in 2010, in the publication of a report covering the 2008 data.

15.  The fact that the questionnaire was unchanged and the electronic resources made available to states should facilitate the national correspondents' task, even in federal states where this task was complicated by the number of players that existed at the level of the federated entities.

Revision of the evaluation scheme

16.  Although the principle was that the questionnaire should remain unchanged, some marginal improvements should be made to the evaluation scheme so as to take into account the difficulties encountered during the 2006 – 2008 exercise:

-       a comments box should be provided for each question rather than at the end of the sections of the questionnaire,

-       the country's area should be taken into account (this information can be obtained by the Secretariat for all member states) with a view to asking more detailed questions concerning the "judicial map".

17.  The Secretariat provided the Group with a list of recommendations for amending the evaluation scheme, drawn up by the scientific expert Marta ZIMOLAG on the basis of her experience of the 2006 – 2008 cycle. They mainly concerned technical changes, intended to facilitate processing of the data, rather than changes of substance.

18.  The national correspondents should be asked to inform the Secretariat before 1 March 2009 of the questions they thought they would be unable to answer.

19.  The national correspondents should be asked to take full account of the explanatory note when answering the questions. The explanatory note could be made more precise in certain respects. The members of the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL were invited carefully to re-read it and to submit to the Secretariat, by 1 March 2009, any proposals for its improvement.

20.  The CEPEJ-GT-EVAL asked the Secretariat to prepare draft revised versions of the evaluation scheme and the explanatory note, taking into consideration the above elements, before the Group's next meeting.

Improvement of the electronic version

21.  The Secretariat was asked to take account of the technical observations made by the national correspondents and the scientific expert with a view to improving the electronic version of the questionnaire in co-operation with the information technology department.

  1. Implementation of the peer evaluation co-operation process

22.  The experts confirmed the usefulness of this exchange and peer evaluation process concerning judicial statistics systems, which they recommended pursuing. It should be borne in mind that the visits did not permit full appraisal of a statistics system but were a component of the evaluation:

-       the visits inter alia allowed the national correspondents to have a better idea of what the CEPEJ expected of them;

-       the process must be based on the guidelines on judicial statistics (see below);

-       the experts should focus in particular on the four categories of cases selected by the CEPEJ for evaluating the length of proceedings and on the three ratios which the CEPEJ recommended for evaluating management of judicial timeframes and the flow of cases (see below);

-       each visit could be an opportunity to look into a specific point of methodology.

23.  The experts stressed that these working meetings must systematically include discussions with the people responsible for collecting judicial data.

24.  Three new countries could be visited in 2009. Norway was already a candidate (the specificities of the organisation of its prosecution system - notably the role played by the police - could usefully be taken into account during this visit). Representatives (national correspondents) of neighbouring northern European countries could participate in this visit. A southern European country and a country from eastern Europe might also wish to volunteer to receive a visit.

6.   Draft CEPEJ guidelines on judicial statistics

25.  The CEPEJ-GT-EVAL discussed and finalised the draft guidelines on judicial statistics (CEPEJ(2008)11Prov) and decided to transmit them to the CEPEJ for adoption at its plenary meeting.

26.  In this connection, the experts welcomed the work being done within the SATURN Centre and, so as to ensure the consistency of the activities on the length of judicial proceedings, decided to append to the draft guidelines the calculation methods and models set out in the SATURN guidelines for judicial time management.

27.  In line with the recommendations of the Steering Group of the SATURN Centre, the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL recommended that, with regard to measuring the length of proceedings, the member states should be encouraged to organise their statistics systems (both central and at the level of individual courts) so as to be able to:

-       collect information on four categories of cases: litigious divorces, employment dismissals, robberies, unintentional homicides,

-       calculate the following three ratios: clearance rate, disposition time and efficiency rate, as defined in the guidelines.

28.  Georg STAWA and Adis HODZIC presented their work on the calculation of courts' efficiency and performance indicators, based on models being developed. The Group welcomed these innovative, promising proposals and agreed to pursue its discussions, taking them into account, during forthcoming meetings so as gradually to establish indicators suitable for use in practice on the basis of the information available in the courts. This would enable the CEPEJ to progress towards genuine evaluation of courts' capacity to manage the flow and backlog of cases. A brief progress report on this work could be presented at the plenary meeting of the CEPEJ.

7.   Co-operation with the European Union

29.  The Secretariat confirmed the good co-operation between the CEPEJ and the European Commission in the context of the Justice Forum. The Council of Europe, and the CEPEJ in particular, had been represented in all of the Forum's working groups and had reiterated their willingness to place their expertise and their mechanisms for evaluating judicial systems at the European Union's disposal.


Appendix I

AGENDA / ORDRE DU JOUR

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

2.         Information by the Secretariat / Information du Secrétariat

3.         2006 - 2008 evaluation cycle / cycle d'évaluation 2006 - 2008

§  Communication strategy on the report / stratégie de communication sur le rapport

§  Preparation of in-depth studies / préparation d’études approfondies

4.         Intermediary procees through the list of key data /

Processus intermédiaire à travers la liste de données clé

6.            Implementation of the new evaluation cycle / Mise en oeuvre du nouveau cycle d’évaluation

§  Recommendation on the timeframe / Recommandation quant au calendrier

§  Revision of the Evaluation Scheme / Révision de la grille d’évaluation

§  Improvement of the electronic version / Amélioration de la version électronique

6.         Implementation of the peer evaluation cooperation process /

Mise en œuvre du processus de coopération à travers une évaluation par les pairs

7.         Draft CEPEJ guidelines on judicial statistics / Projet de lignes directrices de la CEPEJ en matière de statistiques judiciaires

8.         Cooperation with the European Union / Coopération avec l'Union européenne

9.         Any other business / Questions diverses


Appendix II

List of participants / Liste des participants

Fausto de SANTIS, Directeur Général au sein du Bureau de l’organisation judiciaire, Ministère de la Justice, ROME, ITALIE (President of CEPEJ / Président de la CEPEJ)

Elsa GARCIA-MALTRAS DE BLAS, Procureur, Conseillère à l’Unité d’entraide, Direction Générale des Relations avec l’Administration de la Justice, Ministère de la Justice, MADRID, ESPAGN ;   

Beata Z. GRUSZCZYŃSKA, Institute of Justice, Ministry of Justice, WARSAW, POLAND

Adis HODZIC, Head of the Budget and Statistics Department, Secretariat High Judicial and Prosecutiorial Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina, SARAJEVO, BOSNIA and HERZEGOVINA

Jean-Paul JEAN, Avocat Général près la Cour d’Appel de Paris, Professeur associé à l’Université de Poitiers, Parquet Général, PARIS, FRANCE (President of the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL / Président du CEPEJ-GT-EVAL)

Georg STAWA, Public Prosecutor, Directorate for Central Administration and Coordination (Dept. PR1), Federal Ministry of Justice, VIENNA, AUSTRIA

Dražen TRIPALO, Judge, Criminal Department, Supreme Court of the Republic of Croatia, ZAGREB, CROATIA – apologized / excusé

Frans van der DOELEN, Programme Manager of the Department of the Justice System, Ministry of Justice, THE HAGUE, THE NETHERLANDS

COUNCIL OF EUROPE'S MEMBER STATES /

ETATS MEMBRES DU CONSEIL DE L'EUROPE

Yana tsimbalova, Counselor at the Dept. of the apparatus at the Representatiion of the Russian Federation at the ECHR, Ministry of Justice, MOSCOW

SECRETARIAT

Directorate General of Human Rights and Legal Affairs /

Direction générale des droits de l’Homme et affaires juridiques

Justice Division / Division de la Justice

Fax: +33 3 88 41 37 43 - E-mail: [email protected]

Stéphane LEYENBERGER, Secretary of the CEPEJ / Secrétaire de la CEPEJ, Tel : +33 3 88 41 34 12, e-mail: [email protected]

Pim ALBERS, Special Advisor to the CEPEJ/ Conseiller spécial auprès de la CEPEJ, Tel: +33 88 41 47 74, e-mail: [email protected]

Jean-Pierre GEILLER, Documentation / Documentation Tel : +33 3 88 41 22 27, e-mail : [email protected]

Sandrine MAROLLEAU, Communication / Communication, Tél: +33 3 90 21 52 08, e-mail: [email protected]

Elisabeth HEURTEBISE, Assistante, Tel : +33 3 88 41 35 54, Fax : +33 3 88 41 37 45, e-mail: [email protected]

Interpreters / Interprètes

Olivier OBRECHT         

Christopher TYCZKA