Strasbourg, 9 September 2021

CEPEJ-BU(2021)2

EUROPEAN COMMISSION FOR THE EFFICIENCY OF JUSTICE

(CEPEJ)

38th meeting of the Bureau

by videoconference

9 September 2021

MEETING REPORT

Report drafted by the Secretariat

 Directorate General I – Human Rights and Rule of Law

1.     The Bureau of the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) held its 38th meeting on 9 September 2021 by videoconference on account of the health crisis. The meeting was chaired by Mr Ramin Garagurbanli (Gurbanov) (Azerbaijan), President of the CEPEJ.

2.     The following members of the Bureau were also present at the 38th meeting:

§  Mr Juan Fernando Armengot (Spain);

§  Ms Nino Bakakuri (Georgia) (apologised);

§  Mr Francesco Depasquale (Malta), Vice-President of the CEPEJ.

3.     The agenda is contained in Appendix I.

1.   Information from the members of the Bureau and the Secretariat

4.     The Secretariat informed the Bureau that until further notice, the meetings of the Working Groups as well as the plenary meeting in December 2021 would be held in a hybrid format in Strasbourg, giving participants the choice to come to Strasbourg or attend online.

5.     The President of the CEPEJ informed the Bureau that he had taken part in the Conference of Heads of Prosecutor’s Offices on the “Role of the prosecutor’s office in the protection of individual rights and the public interest in light of requirements of the European Convention on Human Rights”, held jointly by the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation, the Council of Europe and the International Association of Prosecutors in Saint Petersburg in July 2021.

6.     In the context of the Hungarian Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers a Conference of the European Ministers of Justice was to be held in Budapest on 5 October 2021 on “Digital technologies and artificial intelligence – new challenges for justice in Europe”. Two CEPEJ experts, Mr Xavier RONSIN (France) and Mr Gregor STROJIN (Slovenia), would be asked to make the introductory addresses before the Ministers’ statements.

2.   Implementation of the 2020-2021 CEPEJ Activity Programme

a.     Evaluation of judicial systems (CEPEJ-GT-EVAL)

7.     The Secretariat began by informing the Bureau that the contract between the Council of Europe and the European Commission (DG-JUST) for the preparation of the European Union Justice Scoreboard had been signed in July 2021 for a period of one year, renewable up to three times. The scope of the CEPEJ study had been extended to criminal cases.

8.     The Secretariat also presented the Bureau with a part of the report prepared by the European Commission (DG-NEAR) in the context of the Dashboard Western Balkans (D-WB) and, in particular, the new design of the beneficiary profiles, which for the first time contained a page analysing the data presented and the features specific to each judicial system. This new design was a response to a request by the European Commission for it to be easier to use the data and the collected information.

9.     Data was also still being collected for the Eastern Partnership Justice Dashboard (D-EaP) and the CEPEJ’s biannual Evaluation cycle.

10.  The Secretariat discussed the challenge it posed to have to conduct four data collection processes at the same time. This was especially noticeable in terms of keeping up the quality of the data collected and harmonising the various quality control processes, all the while ensuring that the correspondents tasked with data collection were not overburdened.

11.  Furthermore, based on the experience of the last Evaluation cycle and that of the Dashboard Western Balkans (D – WB), it was planned to continue to change the design of the CEPEJ’s Evaluation Reports (graphs and analyses/country profiles/CEPEJ-STAT), by adding, in particular, analyses for each country taking part in the Evaluation cycle. For example, t would be interesting to strengthen the link between the summary of main European trends and the country profiles. The Secretariat pointed out however that country analyses, while remaining objective, would not only require more preparation time but that it would also be essential to stabilise the data for proper analysis to take place. The time given over to quality control of data would therefore have to end at a predetermined and strictly observed date, and any subsequent changes in data would have to be limited to predetermined stages.

12.  Subject to the discussions to be held during the next meeting of the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL, the Bureau endorsed the idea of continuing to improve the presentation of the CEPEJ Evaluation Report and instructed the Secretariat to prepare, in consultation with the working group, a draft timetable and proposal for the structure of the different parts of the Report for the next plenary meeting of the CEPEJ.

13.  The Bureau also considered it worthwhile, after finalising the 1^st evaluation report of the D-EaP, to contemplate the possibility of harmonising the frequency and the collection years of the various evaluation cycles.

14.  It was suggested that a video might be produced and made available to the national correspondents instructing them about the national collection of CEPEJ data. More frequent online meetings with the national correspondents would make it possible to help them more with data collection.

15.  The next meeting of the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL would be held in Strasbourg in hybrid format on 5 and 6 October 2021.

b.    SATURN Working group on judicial time management (CEPEJ-SATURN)

16.  The Secretariat described the progress made on the revision of the guidelines on judicial time management to include: new legal personnel such as lawyers, judicial experts, enforcement agents, administrative and non-judge staff of courts and Rechtspflegers. With regard to the latter, the Bureau’s attention was drawn to the fact that the guidelines relating to Rechtspflegers needed to be thoroughly reviewed, as they seemed to assign them the same powers as judges but they did not concentrate sufficiently on their role in judicial time management. The Bureau considered it important to ensure that this document remained a set of guidelines helping to manage judicial time better and did not become a forum to promote one profession over another. In addition, the tasks of Rechtspflegers varied a great deal from one country to another and this was not reflected in the document. However, given that in some states they played a genuine role in judicial time management, the Bureau decided not to retain the current text and to instruct the Secretariat to prepare a new, much shorter draft text to be presented to the CEPEJ-SATURN at its next meeting.

17.  The Bureau discussed how to follow up on the project to devise a tool to detect delays, and their reasons, within a very strictly defined timeframe for judicial proceedings.The Bureau approved the Secretariat’s proposal to prepare a simpler questionnaire than the existing one, focusing on legal time limits and the estimated real length of selected procedural stages in ordinary civil proceedings. It instructed the CEPEJ-SATURN to examine this questionnaire and if it approved of it, to send it to the pilot courts, assess the answers received, and subsequently decide whether to continue with this project.

18.  The Bureau noted that the meeting of pilot courts, scheduled in October at the invitation of the Lubin-East District Court in Poland, could not be held online, and had been postponed until 2022, likely in March.

19.  The Secretariat informed the Bureau that a video had been produced to promote the Handbook on Court Dashboards adopted by the CEPEJ at the last plenary meeting. This was a good example of how the CEPEJ could present a complex tool in a user-friendly manner to legal professionals and court users. It was suggested that this video should be presented to the pilot courts.

 

20.  Two seminars had been held to present CEPEJ-Saturn tools and good practices: (i) a seminar on case weighting for the French Ministry of Justice in the context of the current discussions on a potential reform in this area; and (ii) a seminar on judicial time management for the Turkish Ministry of Justice.

 

21.  The next meeting of the CEPEJ-SATURN would be held in Strasbourg in hybrid format on 13 and 14 October 2021.

c.     Quality of justice (CEPEJ-GT-QUAL)

22.  The main focus of discussion had been the follow-up to the CEPEJ’s Ethical Charter on artificial intelligence and the future of a certification mechanism. Following the CEPEJ’s decision at its last plenary meeting to postpone adoption of the Roadmap, the Secretariat had contacted the European Commission to ascertain in what way the proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council, laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence, could affect the CEPEJ Roadmap which, like the draft EU regulation, intended to set up certification for applications using AI in judicial systems.

The Bureau agreed that it was necessary to adjust its activities for it to complement the EU’s initiative. Specifically, it decided to continue its work on the operationalisation of the CEPEJ Charter in line with what had already been done with the guidelines for the implementation of the CEPEJ AI Charter, as applied to Judicial Decision Modelling Technologies (CEPEJ-GT-QUAL (2020)4).It emphasised that there may be a need at this stage to review the CEPEJ Roadmap, work in close co-operation with the EU and treat labelling (on legal and ethical aspects) solely as a pilot project to be carried out at a later stage.

23.  The next meeting of the CEPEJ-GT-QUAL would be held in Strasbourg in hybrid format on 11 and 12 October 2021. A brief joint meeting with the CEPEJ-GT-CYBERJUST could be held in November to harmonise activities.

d.    Cyberjustice (CEPEJ-GT-CYBERJUST)

24.  The Secretariat informed the Bureau that following the adoption of the guidelines on videoconferencing in judicial proceedings, a compilation of good practices was being drawn up. It also pointed out that the Working Group was continuing to draw up guidelines on electronic court filing (e-filing), online enforcement of judicial decisions (e-enforcement), online dispute resolution (online ADR) and a repository of good practices as well as useful tools/materials.

25.  The Bureau welcomed the establishment of a European Cyberjustice Network in accordance with the terms of reference drawn up by the CEPEJ-GT-CYBERJUST, whose first meeting would be held online on 16 November 2021. A dedicated page would be set up on the CEPEJ website.

26.  The next meeting of the CEPEJ-GT-CYBERJUST would be held online in Strasbourg on 23 and 24 September 2021. A brief joint meeting with the CEPEJ-GT-QUAL could be held in November to harmonise activities.

e.     Co-operation programmes

27.  The Secretariat informed the Bureau that the CEPEJ’s co-operation activities were continuing despite the health crisis, although there were fewer activities and most were held online. Given the circumstances, it had been possible to extend the length of most programmes.

28.  The Bureau particularly welcomed the co-operation activities run under the South Programme with Egypt (administrative justice) and Lebanon (future evaluation of the Lebanese judicial system). The latter had been postponed for the time being because of the restrictions on on-site missions.

9.     Preparation of the 2022-2023 CEPEJ Activity Programme

29.  The Bureau was reminded that the CEPEJ would have to decide on its 2022-2023 Activity Programme at its next plenary meeting, as was the case every two years. In principle there were no significant changes to be anticipated in the terms of reference of the four CEPEJ working groups.

10.  Preparation of a 4-year strategic framework (2022-2025)

30.  The Bureau examined the document entitled “2022 – 2025 CEPEJ Action Plan on Digitalisation for a better justice” (CEPEJ-BU(2021)2 – English only) prepared by the Secretariat. After an exchange of views on the six priorities for action referred to in this document, it instructed the Secretariat to prepare a few lines of explanation for each priority and to resubmit the document including these additions to the Bureau for opinion and comment. Once this document had been finalised, it would be submitted for adoption at the next plenary meeting of the CEPEJ.

11.  Training on CEPEJ tools

31.  The Secretariat informed the Bureau that online courses on CEPEJ activities were to be set up with the support of the Council of Europe HELP service. The Bureau instructed the Secretariat and the Working Groups to present tangible proposals for topics on which these courses could focus as quickly as possible.

12.  Any other business

32.  The Bureau proposed that more frequent online meetings of the Bureau should be held to assist and guide the Secretariat more in the performance of its tasks.

a.     Forthcoming meetings

33.  The next plenary meeting of the CEPEJ would be held in Strasbourg in hybrid format on 8 and 9 December 2021.

34.  The next meeting of the Bureau should be held online on 14 January 2022 and one of the items on the agenda would be the appointment of the members and experts of the CEPEJ Working Groups.

APPENDIX: AGENDA