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Strasbourg, 16 May 2014

CEPEJ-GT-EVAL(2014)6

EUROPEAN COMMISSION FOR THE EFFICIENCY OF JUSTICE (CEPEJ)

WORKING GROUP ON THE EVALUATION OF JUDICIAL SYSTEMS

(CEPEJ-GT-EVAL)

25th meeting

14-16 May 2014

MEETING REPORT

Document prepared by the Secretariat
Directorate General I – Human Rights and Rule of Law

INTRODUCTION

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 25th meeting on 14 and 16 May 2014 and its 8th meeting of the national correspondents on 15 May 2014, in Strasbourg under the presidency of Jean-Paul Jean (France).

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

I.              INFORMATION BY THE SECRETARIAT AND MEMBERS OF THE GT-EVAL

 

3.     The President of the Working Group would like to thank the representatives of the European Union for the cooperation with the CEPEJ Secretariat within the framework of the CEPEJ study with regards to the functioning of judicial systems in the Member States of the European Union, in view of the further development of the justice «Scoreboard». He also would like to thank the CEPEJ Secretariat for the work done.

4.     The Secretariat notes the recruitment of Yannick MENECEUR, detached French magistrate to the CEPEJ by French authorities and mentions his substantial work, in particular for this Study.

II.         IMPLEMENTATION OF THE 2012-2014 EVALUATION CYCLE

5.     The Secretariat informs the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL on the working progress of the Report « European judicial systems - Edition 2014 (2012 data): efficiency and quality of justice » and indicates that improvements have been made at the stage of data quality check. Also, two countries do not participate to this evaluation exercise: Liechtenstein and San Marino.

6.     The Secretariat reminds that Israel also participates in edition 2014. This country, through a specific financing and efficient cooperation with the Secretariat during the quality control, has demonstrated a real involvement and willingness to be fully implicated in the work of the CEPEJ.

7.     The Group examines in detail the chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10 and 17 of the draft Report. Chapter 9 now consists of 2 parts: (i) Respect of the fair trial principle; (ii) the efficiency of the courts serving the citizens.

8.     The Secretariat presents the propositions for structural changes of chapter 2 to clarify the distinction between « the whole justice system » and «legal aid» and to obtain a better coherence with regards to the distinction between the different budgets. The presentation of the data and the readability of the graphs and tables have also improved. The Secretariat notes some inconsistencies in the tables of the 2012 edition in order not to reproduce them.

9.     An exchange of views concerning legal aid mentions the following points:

·       the existence of a correlation between the budget allocated to legal aid and the number of prisoners (see presentation of Ms. Beata Z. GRUSZCZYŃSKA (Poland)) ;

·       the need to improve information with regards to the eligibility criteria for legal aid in the next questionnaire (by inter alia mentioning the right to appeal, which is easier to analyse than the level of income).

10.  Concerning the budgets, the Working group notes that it is essential to keep in mind the variations of the exchange rate and the inflation being very disparate between the countries within the euro zone and those outside the euro zone, especially for those with high inflation regarding the analysis of the comparison between States. Therefore, a proposal has been made to evaluate, in the next edition of the report (2016 edition), specifically the impact of this aspects by doing a comparative study on justice budgets throughout several years.

11.  The President of the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL emphasizes on the necessity to re-examine the correlations between the different elements of the CEPEJ study especially in order to avoid an accumulation of data.

12.  With regards to the presentation, the Secretariat is responsible for drawing particular attention when choosing colors for the graphs and tables (the color red should for example be avoided as it seems alarming) while keeping in mind the first impression one may have by looking to a figure.

13.  The Secretariat has defined the following agenda :

·       Thursday 22 May 2014: deadline of data collection through the electronic questionnaires. After this date, the database will be frozen. Some tables will then be sent to the national correspondents for their opinion.

·       Mid-June : Sending of a preliminary version of the report to the national correspondents;

·       June : drafting of the report chapters;

·       3-4 July 2014 : plenary meeting of the CEPEJ in Baku (Azerbaijan) ; examination of the report in view of its adoption, subjected to ulterior stylistic changes of the Secretariat ;

·       July-17 September 2014 : finalising the tables;

·       Mid-September-October 2014: publication of the report.

14.  In general, Mr. Adis HODZIC (Bosnia-Herzegovina) proposed to simplify the formulation of the questions for the next edition.

15.  The Secretariat notes that the position of statistician still remains unfilled due to administrative complications even though fundings are ensured, which results to an additional workload for the members of the CEPEJ and of the Secretariat. The latter calls upon the members of GT-EVAL for aid with the drafts of the different chapters.

16.  Finally, the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL proceeds to a selection of tables to be presented and to be confirmed during the 8th meeting of the national correspondents which will take place the next day (see Appendix III attached to this document).

III.           IMPLEMENTATION OF THE COOPERATION PROCESS THROUGH A PEER EVALUATION

Ø  Peer evaluation in Jerusalem, Israel ( 23-24 March 2014)

17.  On the occasion of the first participation of Israel to the CEPEJ evaluation exercise, a visit was organised at the Supreme Court of Jerusalem, in Israel, responsible for completing the questionnaire. A visit to the Court of Haifa was also scheduled.

Ø  Peer evaluation in Estonia (14-15 April 2014)

18.  Mr. Roberto CHENAL, CEPEJ Secretariat, reported the visit of the peers in Estonia and notes that the following observations have been made:

§  The level of computerisation is increasingly high in Estonia.

§  Progress has been made with regards to the data collection thanks to information and technology systems.

§  In terms of videoconferencing, projects have been funded by the European Union.

19.  Mr. Frans Van der DOELEN emphasizes on the improvement of the Estonian judicial system with a decrease of Disposition Time and an increase of Clearance Rate under the same model as in Slovenia. They have very simple rules with regards to legal aid. Ms. Stéphanie MOUROU VIKSTRÖM states the Estonian judicial system to be very efficient and notes a large number of people involved in the CEPEJ study.

Ø  Peer evaluation in Switzerland (date to be confirmed in September 2014)

20.  Mr. Roberto CHENAL notes that the next visit will be held in the Federal Supreme Court of Lucerne (Switzerland) on 3 and 4 September 2014. Ms. Munira DOSSAJI and Mr. Ramin GURBANOV should participate.

21.  The Secretariat notes that the next visit by the peers should be held in Lithuania in 2015.

IV.       COOPERATION WITH THE EUROPEAN UNION

Ø  The EU justice scoreboard

22.  The Secretariat notes that this year, the CEPEJ exercise (edition 2014 of the report, 2012 data) takes place at the same time as the “Scoreboard” of the European Commission (2015 edition, 2013 data). The questions used for the “Scoreboard” are extracted from the CEPEJ evaluation scheme, the selection of the questions is in process. This current situation must be well explained to the States. The Working Group notes that this implies an important workload for the national correspondents of the  member states within the European Union that have to answer the same questions twice in the same year but for two different years.

23.  The Secretariat proposes, for the completion of the CEPEJ study, the following schedule :

•     August 2014: sending of the questionnaire to the member states of the European Union

•     1 October 2014: submission of the answers to the Secretariat

•     1 October -15 November 2014: stage of data quality check

•     1 December 2014: sending part I of the CEPEJ study containing the tables with the statistical data to the European Commission

•     31 December 2014: sending part II of the CEPEJ study containing the sheets per country to the European Commission

V.         COOPERATION PROGRAMMES WITH THE CEPEJ WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICY (MOROCCO, TUNISIA AND JORDAN)

24.  The Secretariat gives information on the activities implemented by the CEPEJ regarding cooperation programmes within the framework of neighbouring countries funded by the European Union. The programs led within the framework of the “South Programme” with Morocco and Tunisia should be completed by the end of 2014 but may be continued in 2015-2016 in order to implement already engaged projects in the different pilot courts.

25.  Several visits have taken place in Jordan and a first report for the Jordanian authorities is finalised. It aims at explaining the CEPEJ approach, contains the first recommendations for the improvement of the functioning of the judicial system. It is currently being translated into Arab.

8th MEETING  WITH THE NATIONAL CORRESPONDENTS (15 May 2014)

26.  The President of GT-EVAL thanks the national correspondents for their presence and contribution without them the CEPEJ could not exist.  He informs the national correspondents of the participation of Israel to the CEPEJ study. He also gives information regarding the CEPEJ database and the CEPEJ study for the Scoreboard.

27.  The Secretariat emphasizes on the importance of the collaboration between the national correspondents and more specifically their answers to the Secretariat’s complementary explanation demands within the framework of the « quality check » procedure (especially the provided explanations of the quantitative data).

28.  The Secretariat informs the national correspondents of the calendar for the CEPEJ Report (see above paragraph 13). The President reminds that incoherent data after the deadline for the collection of data (22 May) will not appear in the report.

29.  The Secretariat notes that different themes of the Scheme remain unanswered: case-flow management, mediation, legal aid, bankruptcy procedures (new element for 2014 edition of the report), budget for training institutes and encourages the States to answer to the questions concerning them when possible.

30.  A certain number of tables and graphs are presented and analysed by the national correspondents.

31.  Slovenia is presented as an exemplary model of development of TIC which made the reduction of Disposition Time possible. The President of the GT-EVAL proposes to integrate the Slovenian example to the 2014 edition report.

32.  As concerns the Scoreboard, the Secretariat reminds that the in-depth discussion with regards to the legitimacy of the Scoreboard in itself must take place with the ruling bodies of the European Union in Brussels and not during a meeting with the CEPEJ national correspondents. It is noted that if the Scoreboard continues, it is preferred to use the recognized methodology of CEPEJ. However, the representative of Germany observes that one scoreboard every 2 years would be sufficient. The representative of Slovenia would like to see more comments appear under the tables produced by the UE in the Scoreboard document in order to better understand the latter, in accordance with the methodology of the CEPEJ which consists of the enrichment of the statistical tables with an in-depth analysis.


Appendix I

AGENDA

1.         Adoption of the agenda

2.         Information by the members of the GT and the Secretariat

3.         Implementation of the 2012 – 2014 evaluation

1.    Replies to the scheme : deadlines and calendar, management of questions and corrections

2.    State of affairs regarding data collection and preparation of the data base

3.    Appointment of a statistician

4.    Preparation of the pre-draft of the report: structure, distribution of tasks for drafting the report

5.    Participation of the observers of the CEPEJ in the evaluation

4.         Preparation of the 8th meeting of the National correspondents

5.         Implementation of the peer evaluation cooperation process

§  Peer’s evaluation in Jerusalem, Israel

(23-24 March 2014)

§   Peer’s evaluation in Estonia

(date to be confirmed)

§  Peer’s evaluation in Switzerland

(date to be confirmed in September 2014)

6.         Cooperation with the European Union

§  EU Justice Scoreboard

7.         CEPEJ co-operation programs in the framework of the neighbourhood policy (Morocco, Tunisia and Jordan)

8.         Any other business

Appendix II

List of Participants

Experts

Ramin GURBANOV, Chief of reforms division, General department of organisation and supervision,
Co-ordinator of Judicial Modernisation Project, Ministry of Justice, Baku, AZERBAIJAN

Adis HODZIC, Senior Advisor for Statistics, Secretariat High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Jean-Paul JEAN, Advocate-General of the Court of Cassation, Professeur associé à l’Université de Poitiers, Palais de Justice, FRANCE 

Georg STAWA, Head of Department Pr 8, Projects, Strategy and Innovation, Federal Ministry of Justice, AUSTRIA (Vice-Chair of the CEPEJ / Vice-Président de la CEPEJ)

John STACEY, Government Advisor for the Efficiency and Quality of Justice, UNITED KINGDOM, (Chair of the CEPEJ / Président de la CEPEJ), apologised / excusé

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

Stéphanie MOUROU VIKSTRÖM, First Judge of the First instance Court. First instance Court, Courthouse, MONACO

Scientific expert

Munira Dossaji, Principal Operational Research Analyst , Strategy and Innovation Team, Human Rights and International Directorate, UNITED KINGDOM

Beata Z. GRUSZCZYŃSKA, Institute of Justice, Professor at University of Warsaw and Institute of Justice, POLAND

Other experts

Simone KREβ, Richterin am Oberlandesgericht, Oberlandesgericht Köln, GERMANY

Observers

European Union of Rechtspfleger

Vivien WHYTE, Rechtspfleger at High Instance Court of Strasbourg, STRASBOURG, France

Jean-Jacques KUSTER, President of the European Union of rechtspfleger, STRASBOURG

INTERNATIONAL UNION OF BAILIFFS (UIHJ)

Mathieu CHARDON, Bailiff, Premier secrétaire de l’UIHJ, FRANCE, apologised,

 

EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Elsa GARCIA-MALTRAS, European Commission,Directorate-General Justice BRUXELLES

EUROPEAN UNION

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT (LIBE COMMISSION)

COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

Pawel NALEWAJKO, Fundamental Rights and Criminal Justice, DG D - Justice and Home Affairs, General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union, BRUSSELS

 

WORLD BANK

Klaus Decker, Senior Public Sector Specialist, Public Sector and Institutional Reform, Europe and Central Asia, World Bank, Washington, USA

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

Secretariat

DGI – Human  Rights and Rule of Law

Division for the Independence and Efficiency of Justice

Fax: +33 (0)3 88 41 37 43

E-mail: [email protected]

Hanne JUNCHER, Head of Justice and Legal Co-operation Department

Stéphane LEYENBERGER, Secretary of the CEPEJ

Muriel DECOT,Co-Secretary of the CEPEJ

Christel SCHURRER, Administrator

Yannick MENECEUR, Special Advisor to the Secretariat of the CEPEJ, Special Counselor to the Secretariat of the CEPEJ

Jean-Pierre GEILLER, Administration and finances

Annette SATTEL, Administration and Networks

Evelyne SIMON, Assistant

INTERPRETES

Luke TILDEN

Lucie DE BURLET

Grégoire DEVICTOR

 Appendix III

List of the selected (and exposed) tables 2010 data vs 2012 data:

·         Figure 3.5 Number of cases granted with legal aid per 100 000 inhabitants and average amount allocated in the public budget for the legal aid per case in 2010/2012 (Q12,Q20)

·         Figure 3.2  Allocated legal aid per inhabitant and per average cost

·         Figure 5.5 Number of all courts (geographic locations) per 100 000 inhabitants in 2010 (Q42)

·         Table 7.1 Type and number of judges in 2010 (Q46, Q48 and Q49)

·         Table 8.1 Distribution of non-judge staff in courts (Q52)

·         Figure 9.5 Number of 1st instance incoming and resolved civil (and commercial) litigious cases per 100 000 inhabitants in 2010/2012 (Q91)

·         Table 9.28 Number of incoming criminal cases (severe criminal offences) and misdemeanour cases (minor) offences) in first instance courts. Absolute figures and per 100 000 inhabitants in 2010 (Q94)

·         Table 11.19  Gross and net salaries of judges and prosecutors at the Supreme Court or at the Highest Appellate in 2010 (Q132)

·         Table 12.1 Absolute number of lawyers and legal advisors, number per 100 000 inhabitants and number per professional judge (Q1, Q46, Q146, Q147, Q148)