Strasbourg, 11 December 2008
CEPEJ(2008)13
european Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ)
12th plenary meeting (10-11 December 2008) - Abridged report
A. FOREWORD
The European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) held its 11th plenary meeting in Strasbourg on 10 – 11 December 2008. 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 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. Evaluation of European judicial systems
§ noted with great satisfactionthe excellent welcome by the Committee of Ministers to the Report as well as the large echoes given to this Report in several member states, both among policy makers and justice practitioners and in the media;
§ recalled that the Report must be presented and analysed while fully taking into account the methodological information that it includes, namely when comparing information from various member states, invited the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL to propose modalities which enable to present data of comparable countries within the framework of the next evaluation cycles and invited the national correspondents to indicate to the Secretariat the countries they think they can be compared to on elements to be defined;
§ invited its members to disseminate the Report to the competent authorities and judicial professional of their country, in particular in facilitating its translation, where appropriate, and to forward as soon as possible to the Secretariat, information on the use of the Report by the authorities of their countries as well as press articles written on a national level that concern the Report;
§ decided to pursue the in-depth analyse of the Report, as follows :
- instructed the CPEJ-GT-EVAL to achieve within this group a study on the general organisation of courts and the judicial map;
- decided to launch calls for projects to external researchers who might benefit from a CEPEJ label on the basis of a specific protocol, on the following themes : single judge and panels of judges in Europe– possibly in collaboration with the European Association of Judges and MEDEL ; the role of lawyers in judicial proceedings in Europe – possibly in collaboration with the CCBE ; the organisation of court clerk offices in the European judicial systems – possibly in collaboration with the UER;
it instructed the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL to manage this process, under the authority of the
Bureau, while ensuring the proper coordination with the other working groups;
- furthermore agreed to hold a study session in 2009 on the financing of courts, in view of possible further in-depth work of the CEPEJ, taking account Opinion No. 2 of the CCJE on funding and management of courts;
§ reiterated its invitation to member states, who wish to do so, to send updated judicial data concerning the year 2007, on the basis of “Key data on Justice in Europe” (CEPEJ(2007)27);
§ decided to launch the next evaluation process in 2009 on the basis of data for the year 2008, in view of the publication of a new report during 2010, while taking into account the specific difficulties of the federal states for data collection;
§ instructed the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL to bring the necessary modifications to the evaluation scheme and the explanatory note thereto, while ensuring as far as possible the stability of this scheme; entrusted the Secretariat to bring the necessary improvements to the electronic version of the questionnaire and to organise appropriate modalities for the implementation of this new evaluation cycle;
§ decided to pursue the peer evaluation cooperation process on judicial statistics, through the organisation of three further visits in 2009, which would namely take into account the Guidelines on judicial statistics (GOJUST), and entrusted its Bureau to study the candidatures from member states forwarded to the Secretariat before 15 January 2009 so as to set up a programme for the visits;
§ adopted the "CEPEJ Guidelines on judicial statistics (GOJUST)" (CEPEJ(2008)11) and decided to submit them to the Committee of Ministers so that it can take note of them; it invited its members to disseminate them widely to national correspondents responsible for collecting the CEPEJ statistical data, to the central services competent for judicial statistics as well as to the relevant bodies within the courts of their countries and to facilitate their translation, where appropriate;
4. SATURN Centre on judicial time management
§ adopted the "SATURN Guidelines for judicial time management (EUGMONT)" (CEPEJ (2008) 8) and decided to submit them to the Committee of Ministers so that it can take note f it and invited its members to disseminate them widely to policy makers and courts of their countries and to facilitate their translation, where appropriate;
§ agreed that the SATURN Centre aims to evolve progressively towards a European observatory on judicial timeframes and instructed the Steering Group of the Centre to continue its work in this spirit;
5. Quality of justice
§ invited its members to ensure wide dissemination of the “Checklist for promoting the quality of justice and courts” among the policy makers and in the courts of their countries and to facilitate their translation, where appropriate;
§ supported the ongoing work within the CEPEJ-GT-QUAL and invited it to finalise in 2009 a study on the quality systems in Europe, guidelines on the contractualisation of judicial proceedings and a handbook on the satisfaction surveys aimed at court users of justice, including if possible models of questionnaire;
6. CEPEJ Network of Pilot Courts
§ warmly thanked the Court of Appeal of Catania and the Italian authorities who invited the Network of Pilot Courts to hold its 3rd plenary meeting on 24 October 2008, in the framework of the European Day of Justice;
§ welcomed the conclusions of the 3rd plenary meeting of the Network and invited its members as well as the Pilot Courts to implement in 2009 the conclusions adopted during this meeting (CEPEJ(2008)12);
§ welcomed the proposal of the Court of Appeal of Catania to dedicate, within the Network of Pilot Courts, exchange views on issues of specific interest to the second instance courts and agreed to consider any proposal which could be submitted to it in this regard;
7. Targeted co-operation with member states
§ noted the ongoing cooperation with Bulgaria on the criteria for categorisation of courts and for evaluating individual judges; agreed to cooperate with Portugal to assess the policy to facilitate the case flow management and to fight court backlogs and the policy for dematerialised proceedings and the use of ICT in the field of justice; agreed to cooperate with Malta to assess the efficiency of the functioning of its judicial system; agreed to cooperate with Armenia for the allocation of cases to courts; it instructed its Bureau to arrange the details of such activities;
§ welcomed the ongoing cooperation between the courts of appeal of Rome and Paris and stressed its interest in being kept informed of the results of the comparative studies conducted between these two courts;
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), the Consultative Council of European Prosecutors (CCPE), the European Committee of Legal Cooperation (CDCJ), the European Committee on Crime Problems and the Lisbon Network;
§ agreed in particular, to appoint an expert who would participate as an observer in the work of the Group of Specialists for child-friendly justice and the work of the Group of Specialists on justice;
9. CEPEJ Activity programme for 2009
§ adopted its of Activity Programme for 2009 (CEPEJ(2008)10);
§ invited the member states, through the CEPEJ members, where appropriate, to propose to the Secretariat by 15 January 2009 qualified experts to participate in the working groups and entrusted its Bureau to appoint members of these working groups taking into account these proposals;
10. Cooperation with the European Union
§ took note of the information given by the representatives of France and the Czech Republic, 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;
§ took note of the activities carried out in 2008 by the Justice Forum and reiterated its full disposal to pursue its cooperation with the Forum in 2009, including within the framework of the organisation of the « Crystal Scales of Justice » in the criminal law field;
§ invited its members to promote the European Day of Justice in their country and to propose to the Secretariat to organise the main event of this Day in 2009 ;
11. Observers with the CEPEJ
§ took noteof the information given by its Observers, thanked them for their concrete contribution to its activities and invitedthem to further contribute to the implementation of its programme of activities;
12. Election of the Bureau
§ re-elected for a two year period:
- President: Mr Fausto de SANTIS (Italy)
- Vice-President: Mr John STACEY (United Kingdom)
- Member of the Bureau: Ms Elsa GARCIA MALTRAS de BLAS (Spain)
- Member of the Bureau: Ms Ivana BORZOVA (Czech Republic).
agenda
1. Opening of the meeting
2. Adoption of the agenda
3. Information by the President of the CEPEJ and the Secretariat
4. Recent developments in the judicial field in the Council of Europe Member states
5. Evaluation of European judicial systems (CEPEJ-GT-EVAL)
i. Report on “European judicial systems – Edition 2008”
1. Tour de table: communication on and use of the Report in the member states
2. Preparation of in-depth studies
Rapporteur: Jean-Paul JEAN, Chair of the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL
ii. Continuation of the evaluation cycle
Rapporteur: Frans Van der DOELEN (Netherlands)
1. Intermediary process through the list of key data
2. New evaluation cycle
iii. Implementation of the pilot peer evaluation co-operation process
Rapporteur: Adis HODZIC (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
iv. Draft CEPEJ guidelines on judicial statistics: discussion with a view to its adoption
Rapporteur: Georg STAWA (Austria)
6. SATURN Centre on judicial time management
Rapporteur: Jacques BÜHLER, Chair of the Steering group
i. Discussion of the draft “SATURN guidelines for judicial time management” with a view to their adoption
ii. Follow up tot the work: Towards a European Observatory of judicial timeframes
7. Quality of justice (CEPEJ-GT-QUAL)
Rapporteur: François PAYCHERE (Switzerland)
i. Use of the Checklist for promoting the quality of the judiciary and courts
ii. Study on the quality systems in Europe
iii. Contractualisation of judicial proceedings
iv. Assessing the users’ satisfaction
8. CEPEJ Network of Pilot Courts
i. 3rd plenary meeting of the Network, Catania (Italy), 24 October 2008
Rapporteur: John STACEY (United Kingdom)
ii. Specific group of pilot appeal courts (initiative of Italy)
Rapporteur: Fausto DE SANTIS (Italy)
iii. How to improve the involvement of the Network members ?
Rapporteur: Elsa GARCIA MALTRAS de BLAS (Spain)
9. Targeted co-operation of the CEPEJ with Member states
i. Bulgaria: criteria for the classification of courts and criteria for evaluating individual judges (1st expert meeting on 21 and 22 January 2009)
ii. Portugal:
a. policies to ease procedural flows and fight backlogs
b. dematerialization and use of IT in the justice field
iii. France / Italy: comparisons of the courts of appeal of Rome and Paris
iv. Malta: evaluation of the efficiency of the justice system
v. Other proposals for 2009
10. Discussion of the draft Activity programme of the CEPEJ for 2009 in view of its adoption
Rapporteur: Nikola PROKOPENKO (« the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia »)
11. Relations between the CEPEJ and the other bodies of the Council of Europe
i. Consultative Council of European Judges (CCJE)
ii. Consultative Council of European Prosecutors (CCPE)
iii. European Committee on Legal Cooperation (CDCJ)
iv. European Committee on Crime Problems (CDPC)
v. Steering Committee on Human Rights (CDDH)
vi. Lisbon Network
12. Co-operation with the European Union
i. Last developments within the European Union in the judicial field
Rapporteurs: Jean-Paul SUDRE (France) et Ivana BORZOVA (Czech Republic) on behalf of the outgoing and incoming presidencies of the European Union
ii. Involvement of the CEPEJ in the Justice Forum of the European Commission
iii. Civil and Penal Crystal Scales of Justice
13. Observers to the CEPEJ
14. Election of the Bureau
15. Any other business