Strasbourg, 7 November 2018
CEPEJ-GT-EVAL(2018)23
EUROPEAN COMMISSION FOR THE EFFICIENCY OF JUSTICE
(CEPEJ)
WORKING GROUP ON THE EVALUATION OF JUDICIAL SYSTEMS
(CEPEJ-GT-EVAL)
35th meeting
6-7 November 2018
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 35th meeting on 6 and 7 November 2018 in Venice, with Jasa VRABEC (Slovenia) in the chair.
2. The agenda appears in Appendix I and the list of participants in Appendix II to this report.
I. ELECTION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE GT-EVAL
3. The Working Group warmly thanks Jean-Paul JEAN (France) who, by chairing the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL since the beginning of its work in 2002, truly embodied the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL, thanks to his significant work, his competence to share his expertise tirelessly throughout Europe and beyond, his impetus to set up a tool that did not exist until then, his permanent concern to build and enrich a reliable and useful database, his energy and his enthusiasm. The Group recognizes that it will be a real challenge to continue the work undertaken by Jean-Paul JEAN and expresses the wish that he will accompany the future of the CEPEJ work on evaluation from a distance.
4. Jasa VRABEC is nominated President of the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL. In order to reconcile this new responsibility with his many other activities, the rest of the members of the Working Group commit to become more involved in participating in the Working Group's numerous invitations to present its work, outside the Group's regular meetings. As concerns the latter, the President and the other members of the Working Group instruct the Secretariat to organise the meetings, as far as possible, in Paris, Brussels or Venice which would be more easily accessible to all of them.
II. Information BY THE SECRETARIAT AND MEMBERS OF THE GT-EVAL
5. The Secretariat provids an update on the publication of the report "European Judicial Systems" 2018 edition (2016 data) which took place on 5 October 2018. The Working Group welcomes the very favourable reception by the delegations of the Member States at the Committee of Ministers' meeting on 3 October 2018 and the important media coverage throughout Europe of the 2018 Report.
III. EVALUATION CYCLE 2018 – 2020
6. The members of the Group had an exchange of views on how to improve the coming exercises, considering that after 10 years of evaluation exercise and 4 series of data, it is useful to rethink the exercise in order to modernize it, optimize it and better meet States' expectations without denying what has already been done.
Presentation of data
7. With regard to the use by States of the Report and the data contained therein, they note the inadequacy between the way in which the data are presented and processed by the Secretariat and the way in which States would like their national data to appear:
- thematic dashboards, by State, should be available on CEPEJ-STAT given that States seek above all to compare themselves with other States and to compare national data for the current year with those of the previous year;
- the main European trends concerning the functioning of the European judicial systems should appear more clearly, and in a modernised form, for the States but also for the reader in general, without, however, setting up a system for ranking States according to their performance in a specific field. This would also reduce the risk that journalists would then highlight certain problematic data that may not be so.
- in general, the presentation of the paper Report should evolve. It should be shorter in length and its content less descriptive; it should also take into account the fact that the paper report is up to date for a very short period of time. Following the publication, only CEPEJ-STAT is updated.
Work methods
- CEPEJ-COLLECT should be improved to facilitate replies;
- an excel file for each State containing all the data from previous years would facilitate the task of national correspondents;
- it is noted that CEPEJ-STAT, which is now the CEPEJ's modern data presentation tool, is updated at the very end of the process, after the drafting of the paper Report, whereas it would be useful to first update CEPEJ-STAT; the experts should work by means of a modern tool such as Tableauand no longer by means of the tables used during the previous exercise and simply updated, which limit their initiative capacity and make the Final Report an update of the previous one; in that way, the experts would "play" with the tool containing the data, decide to cross-reference such and such data, to analyse such and such field without feeling influenced by what has already been done;
- the experts should have several months to prepare their report, not a few weeks: they can start working with data from previous years, and at the last moment, when available, integrate data from the relevant year;
- it is absolutely necessary to use experts who are comfortable with the computerized data presentation tool; experts should receive training on this tool well in advance of the date the data are available, so that they can become familiar with it;
- the Secretariat spends a lot of time publishing successive versions of the tables of the report to be used by the experts, instead of focusing on the overview which is more used in States and by the press;
- during the plenary meeting of the CEPEJ when the members approve the Report, the latter is in fact not really finished and is considerably modified by the experts and the Secretariat afterwards;
- numerous hours are devoted to reviewing the chapters of the current report and formatting the lists of States listed below the tables.
8. Thus, the next evaluation exercise could result in:
- CEPEJ-STAT containing all available data;
- a handbook promoting CEPEJ-STAT and explaining how to use CEPEJ-STAT through concrete examples;
- a presentation document as it currently exists (overview), which should be enriched with a minimum of analysis;
- a Report containing two parts:
(i) country fiches: a summary sheet by State or entity should present the main data over two exercises, as the CEPEJ has already done in the IT report; the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL will have to decide on the data to appear in this framework, the other data being available within CEPEJ-STAT; the members of the CEPEJ, when they have to approve the data during the CEPEJ plenary meeting, will see their task facilitated by such a presentation;
(ii) European comparisons on specific topics reflecting current trends (gender, IT, budget, performance); with this in mind, current trends should first be identified and then experts should be asked to prepare their analyses of these trends, which would in fact become the new chapters of the report; to determine these new chapters, the Group should also consider in detail the list of tables in the report beforehand and decide which ones should be retained in the future.
9. Such a new presentation would have the advantage of ensuring consistency between the working methods used for the CEPEJ Evaluation exercise on the one hand, and the Scoreboards on the other hand, the latter being destined to develop (see paragraphs 26 to 35 below). This would allow the Secretariat to optimize its work.
10. The Groupe notes that it should be borne in mind that giving priority to the electronic tool should not be at the expense of keeping a written record of the data and of the possibility of having, in one form or another, what may constitute archives.
11. An official letter should be sent to all CEPEJ members explaining the reasons for such changes, including the need to always provide a better quality finished product.
Work timetable
- many States need time to translate the new questionnaire; however, the concerned States in general take the translation issue into account when the questionnaire is opened in June (and therefore transmitted to national authorities in September), when it is actually adopted in December of the previous year. The Secretariat should send this questionnaire earlier in the year, as soon as it is adopted by the CEPEJ (in February N+1), so that it can already be translated when CEPEJ-COLLECT is opened;
- the current date of activation of CEPEJ-COLLECT is June 1. This date could be brought forward to 1 March (N+1) and the Secretariat should further motivate States to work immediately and start replying;
- as it stands, States have 7 months to fill the evaluation grid. It is proposed to bring forward the date for the submission of replies to 1st October (N+1) instead of 31 December at present, with one off exception concerning federal States; it seems clear that the majority of States are able to provide the data earlier than the current deadline;
- the experts should be appointed as of October N+1;
- Following the December plenary meeting (N+1), a day should be devoted to the presentation of the tool to the experts in the presence of CEPEJ-GT-EVAL members to explain what is expected from the experts;
- the time required for the quality control process carried out by the Secretariat is 4 months; if the deadlines are modified as described above, this control can be completed on 1st February (N+2);
12. The CEPEJ-GT-EVAL agrees not to take definitive decisions at this stage, to submit for approval by the CEPEJ in December only the modified grid and to continue its reflection in 2019 on the form of the next Report.
Grid for the 2020 exercise (2018 data)
13. The Working Group examines in detail the Grid (Document CEPEJ-GT-EVAL(2018)19 prepared by the Secretariat) and decides to revise it taking into account:
– the difficulties encountered during the previous exercise by the national correspondents on certain issues and highlighted by the Secretariat during the quality control process;
– proposals for amendments to the questions concerning mediation prepared by the CEPEJ-GT-MED, aimed at improving the quality of data on this subject;
– proposals for amendments presented by the Council of the Notariats of the European Union (CNUE) to improve the quality of data on notaries.
14. The Working Group agrees on commenting the document CEPEJ-GT-EVAL(2018)25 containing the questions related to new information technologies through electronic procedure.
15. It is also agreed to keep in mind that some questions allowing the Council of Europe Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO) to obtain data via the CEPEJ on certain aspects related to the standards of the Istanbul Convention could be added.
16. Finally, it is decided to substantially modify the questions concerning performance and evaluation as this is a very important part of the exercise. This revision cannot be limited to a question-by-question examination but requires that the questions be considered in a comprehensive manner and in the light of the replies and comments provided by States. The Group instructs the Secretariat to submit promptly proposals for new questions, which it will then consider electronically before the plenary meeting. It expresses the wish to consult also the CEPEJ-GT-QUAL on these questions.
17. The Grid is significantly modified and the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL instructs the Secretariat to prepare a finalized version of it to be submitted to the CEPEJ for adoption at its next plenary meeting in December 2018. Given the very short deadlines, the Group would like that when adopting the new grid, the CEPEJ requires from the GT-EVAL to make a final review in order to improve the wording of the questions and adapt CEPEJ-COLLECT and CEPEJ-STAT to the grid thus adopted. In this case, the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL could hold its first meeting in 2019, as of January, to accomplish this task and allow the next cycle to begin in March.
18. This meeting could also allow determining whether or not to choose for the next exercise a topic that would be addressed in depth (as had been the case for IT and gender equality respectively in the previous two cycles). In view of the major revision of the presentation of the results of this evaluation cycle and the possible new form of the report, the Group prefers to postpone this decision to the next meeting. Nevertheless, some topics are advanced such as that of alternatives to prosecution (which could be developed in collaboration with the CEPEJ-GT-MED) or that of the feminisation of the legal professions and the evolution of working conditions.
IV. Coopération WITH THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION
a. Study for the European Commission on the functioning of judicial systems in the Member States of the European Union (Justice Scoreboard)
19. The Secretariat informs the Working Group that all States, except for Germany, have replied to the questionnaire opened in CEPEJ-COLLECT for this study and that data quality control is ongoing. The first part of the CEPEJ Study for the EU Scoreboard will be submitted to the European Commission on 15 November. It will include 183 tables with comments provided by national correspondents.
20. As to Germany, two points remain problematic: the late submission of data and the quality of the replies as they seem to concern only some Länder, and not always the same ones. A meeting between the German member of the CEPEJ, a representative of the European Commission and a representative of the CEPEJ Secretariat took place last June. Jacques Buhler also went to Berlin to share Swiss experience (which resorts in respect of some questions to an extrapolation of data from some cantons in order to provide a nationwide answer). The European Commission recently wrote to the German representative asking him to provide the data as soon as possible to allow for quality control and delivery of the study including the German data by the end of the year.
b. New Study of the CEPEJ on the indicators for Western Balkans
21. Upon the request of the European Commission (DG NEAR and DG JUST), the CEPEJ Secretariat was invited at the beginning of 2018 to consider a possible cooperation based on the CEPEJ methodology in order to assess the progress of the judicial systems of the candidate countries of the Western Balkans.
22. This study would be based on an annual CEPEJ questionnaire and would cover 5 Member States, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", Serbia and Kosovo*. The European Commission proposed a list of indicators including indicators referring to existing questions of the CEPEJ evaluation questionnaire, as well as new indicators.
23. Contacts have been established with other Council of Europe services, in particular the GRECO, the European Court of Human Rights and the Department for the execution of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, to assess the feasibility of collecting certain data relating to the new indicators.
24. Several videoconferences and a meeting in Brussels (1 October 2018) between the CEPEJ Secretariat and the European Commission took place to discuss the modalities of such cooperation, namely:
- the determination of indicators which have to be consistent with the CEPEJ methodology;
- the credibility of the timetable necessary to obtain data from the States concerned and carry out the quality control process;
- the form of the report to be provided (individual sheets per country, tables).
25. The project should enter within the frame of the Horizontal Facility Program 2, for a period of three years starting in spring 2019, provided that:
- the CEPEJ Secretariat can recruit the necessary staff to carry out this project,
- full transparency with regard to the participating States is ensured,
- the CEPEJ approves formally this cooperation (the CEPEJ Bureau has already given its approval in principal), and data could be collected.
26. On 24 October 2018, the CEPEJ secretariat met in Strasbourg with DG JUST where it was agrred:
- to finalise the questionnaire (list of indicators) by the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL during the present meeting,
- to require the formal agreement of the CEPEJ on the cooperation process, including indicators, at its plenary meeting on 3-4 December 2018,
- to organize a meeting with the Western Balkans, the Secretariat of the CEPEJ and the EC to agree on the modalities and timetables (namely the date of submission of the data).
27. In this context, the Secretariat presents to the Working Group a document proposing, for the indicators suggested by the European Commission, especially for the indicators not used in the CEPEJ evaluation exercise, new questions to be replied by the States concerned by the exercise (CEPEJ-GT-EVAL(2018)24). In particular, it is invited to react on the relevance of these questions as to the replies that may be given to them.
28. The Group considers that, due to the importance of the subject and the novelty of some of the proposed indicators, further discussions are necessary and cannot be held at the present meeting due to time constraints. The Group therefore instructs a small group of its members to prepare the document containing the new questions on indicators, with the responsibility for the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL then to adopt it by electronic means. A meeting is planned for this purpose in Belgrade on 27 November 2018.
V. PEER REVIEW coopEration PROCESS
a. Peer review in “the Former Yougoslav Republic of Macedonia”
29. A peer review meeting had been held in "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" on 18-19 September 2018 with the participation of Ramin GURBANOV (Azerbaijan), Jasa VRABEC (Slovenia) and Martina VRDOLJAK (Croatia) offering an opportunity to establish many contacts with those involved in data collection and to work on the consistency of some data, while identifying some reasons for missing data on a regular basis throughout the evaluation cycles.
b. Peer review in Andorra
30. The Secretariat informs the Working Group that a peer review mission will be carried out in the Principality of Andorra on 10 and 11 December 2018 in order to deal with some persistent problems in data collection and to raise awareness among the various actors involved in the collection of statistical data on the interest of the statistical data collected by the CEPEJ.
VI. Specific study on Legal professionals
31. The Secretariat informs the Group that the 2016 data (in the form of tables and graphs) have been sent to the CNUE (Council of the Notariats of the European Union), the UIHJ (International Union of Judicial Officers) and the EEEI (European Expertise and Expert Institute) in order to update the specific studies on legal professionals.
VII. ad hoc working group entrusted with the revision of the definitions used by the CEPEJ
32. Simone KRESS (Germany), who represents the GT-EVAL in the ad hoc Working Group entrusted with the revision of the CEPEJ definitions, presented the draft Glossary to the Working Group (Document CEPEJ(2018)2PROV5). She informed the Group that a third meeting of the ad hoc Group is scheduled for 24 and 25 January 2019 after consultation with all the working groups on this project.
33. Due to time constraints, the Group decides to send its comments on the document by the end of the year.
VIII. WORK TIMETABLE
34. The Working Group expresses the wish, if the budget allows it, to have an additional working meeting each year of the evaluation.
35. The next meeting of the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL will take place in January 2019.
Annexe I
AGENDA / ORDRE DU JOUR
2. Adoption of the agenda / Adoption de l’ordre du jour
3. Election of the President of the GT-EVAL / Election du Président du GT-EVAL
4. Information by the members of the Working Group and the Secretariat / Information des membres du groupe de travail et du Secrétariat
5. Summary of the 2016 – 2018 evaluation cycle / Bilan du cycle d’évaluation 2016 – 2018
6. 2018 – 2020 evaluation cycle / Cycle d’évaluation 2018 –2020
- Preparation of the new questionnaire / Préparation du nouveau questionnaire
o Proposal of changes (summary of the previous cycle) / propositions de changements (bilan du cycle precedent)
o Specific topics (IT questionnaire and gender equality additionnal questionnaire) / sujets particuliers (questionnaire TI et questionnaire additionnel sur la parité hommes-femmes)
o Proposal from the CEPEJ-GT-MED / propositions du CEPEJ-GT-MED
o Proposal from the CNUE / propositions du CNUE
- Discussion on the structure and the timetable of the next report / Discussion concernant la structure et le calendrier du prochain rapport
- Selection of a new topic for the thematic report / Choix d’un nouveau sujet pour le rapport thématique
7. Cooperation with European Commission / Coopération avec la Commission Européenne
a. Study for the European Commission on the functioning of judicial systems in the member States of the European Union (Scoreboard of justice) / Etude pour la Commission européenne sur le fonctionnement des systèmes judiciaires dans les Etats membres de l’Union européenne (Tableau de bord de la justice)
b. New CEPEJ Study on Western Balkans Indicators / Nouvelle Etude de la CEPEJ sur les indicateurs pour les Balkans occidentaux
8. Peer evaluation cooperation process / Processus de coopération à travers une évaluation par les pairs
c. Peer evaluation in “the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” / Evaluation par les pairs en « ex-République yougoslave de Macédoine »
d. Peer evaluation in Andorra / Evaluation par les pairs en Andorre
9. Specific Study on the judicial professionnals / Etude spécifique sur les professionnels de la justice
10. Ad hocWorking Group entrusted with the revision of the definitions used by CEPEJ / Groupe de Travail ad hoc chargé de la révision des définitions utilisées par la CEPEJ
11. Any other business / Questions diverses
Annexe II
List of Participants / Liste des participants
Members / Membres
Ramin GURBANOV, Judge, Baku City Yasamal District court, BAKU, AZERBAIJAN (Vice President of CEPEJ/Vice-Président de la CEPEJ)
Adis HODZIC, Senior Advisor for Statistics High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kraljice Jelene 88, 7100 SARAJEVO, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
Jean-Paul JEAN, Président de chambre à la Cour de cassation, 5 Quai de l’Horloge, 75055 PARIS CEDEX, France (Apologised/Excusé)
Simone KREβ, Vice-President, Landgericht Köln, Luxemburger Str. 101, 50939 KÖLN, GERMANY
Jaša VRABEC, Head of the Office for Court Management Development, Supreme Court, Tavčarjeva 9, 1000 LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA (President of CEPEJ-GT-EVAL/Président du CEPEJ-GT-EVAL)
Martina VRDOLJAK, Head of department for statistics, analytic and strategic development of Judiciary, Directorate for organisation of Judiciary, Ministry of justice, Ulica grada Vukovara 49, 10000 ZAGREB, CROATIA
Ivana NINČIĆ, Ministry of Justice, 22-26 Namanjina St. BELGRADE, SERBIA
***
SCIENTIFIC EXPERTS / EXPERTS SCIENTIFIQUES
Christophe KOLLER, Directeur opérationnel, ESEHA, Herzogstr. 25, 3014 BERNE, SUISSE
***
Observers / Observateurs
COUNCIL OF THE NOTARIATS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION (CNEU) / CONSEIL DES NOTARIATS DE L’UNION EUROPEENNE (CNUE)
Geertjan SARNEEL, Meijling & Sarneel Notarissen en Adviseurs, Vestiging Kapelle, THE NETHERLANDS,
EUROPEAN EXPERTISE AND EXPERT INSTITUTE / INSTITUT EUROPEEN DE L’EXPERTISE ET DE L’EXPERT (EEEI)
Nico KEIJSER, Vice-President of EEEI
INTERNATIONAL UNION OF JUDICIAL OFFICERS / UNION INTERNATIONALE DES HUISSIERS DE JUSTICE ET OFFICIERS JUDICIAIRES (UIHJ)
Mathieu CHARDON, Huissier de justice, Secrétaire général de l’UIHJ, 6 place du Colonel Fabien, 75019 PARIS, FRANCE
European Union of Rechtspfleger / Union européenne des greffiers de justice et Rechtspfleger (EUR)
Gabriele GUARDA, Vice-President of EUR
***
COUNCIL OF EUROPE / CONSEIL DE L’EUROPE
Secretariat
Directorate General of Human Rights and Rule of Law (DG I)
Division for the Independence and Efficiency of Justice/
Direction Générale des Droits de l’Homme et Etat de droit (DG I)
Division pour l’indépendance et l’efficacité de la justice
E-mail: [email protected]
Muriel DECOT, Co-Secretary of the CEPEJ/Co-secrétaire de la CEPEJ, Tél: +33 (0)3 90 21 44 55, e-mail : [email protected]
Christel SCHURRER, Secretary of the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL/Secrétaire du CEPEJ-GT-EVAL, Tél : +33 (0)3 90 21 56 97, e-mail: [email protected]
Lidija NAUMOVSKA, Administrator, statistician/Administratrice, statisticienne, Tél: +33 (0)3 88 41 22 49, e-mail: [email protected]