Strasbourg, 20 November 2020

CEPEJ-GT-EVAL(2020)17

EUROPEAN COMMISSION FOR THE EFFICIENCY OF JUSTICE

(CEPEJ)

WORKING GROUP ON THE EVALUATION OF JUDICIAL SYSTEMS

(CEPEJ-GT-EVAL)

39^th meeting

19 – 20 November 2020

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) has held its 39^th meeting on 19 and 20 November 2020, in videoconference, with Jaša Vrabec (Slovenia) in the chair.

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.     Esmin IMERI (Project Assistant, based in Podgorica, Montenegro), Federica VIAPIANA (Project Manager) and Daniela ZOL (Statistician) are introduced to the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL. They will support the CEPEJ Secretariat, mainly for the Dashboard Western Balkans.

II.         SUMMARY OF THE 2018-2020 EVALUATION CYCLE

4.     The President of the Working Group mentions the excellent work carried out for the preparation and publication of the CEPEJ Report "European judicial systems 2020 Edition (2018 data)”. This includes the new country profiles, the new presentation of the content based on European trends and the redesign of the report. It has been a challenge, especially because the report was developed during the first wave of the COVID-19 epidemic. He thanks the members and scientific experts of the Working Group as well as the Secretariat for their involvement during the whole process.

 

5.     The CEPEJ-GT-EVAL members are pleased with the very good reception given to the Report by the Committee of Ministers as well as by media, including the social media. These have shown a keen interest for the country profiles, especially during the press video-conference held on 22^nd October to launch the report. The Report was also presented at the Conference of Ministers of Justice of the Council of Europe, held on 9 November 2020.

6.     Tatyana TEPLOVA from OECD congratulates the Working Group for its excellent work and confirms that the Report will be very useful for some of the OECD analyses.

7.     The media have particularly been interested in the changes of their own countries compared either with the previous cycles or with the European trend. The country profiles highlight these changes only in their online version. This analysis should be developed in the next edition of the Report.

8.     The Secretariat informs the Working Group about various difficulties faced by countries during the quality check process. Namely, the national correspondents might have been nominated during the process or they had more structural difficulties linked to the data collection and availability. Some peer reviews missions could be organised in the next months to support these countries and try to improve the whole evaluation process. 

III.        PREPARATION OF THE 2020-2022 EVALUATION CYCLE

9.     The Secretariat presents the draft of the revised questionnaire for the 2020-2022 evaluation cycle. The changes were mainly proposed by the President of the Working Group, by the experts involved in the drafting of the report for the 2018-2020 cycle, as well as by the observers of the Working Group. The proposed changes take into account the feedback received during the previous cycle by the national correspondents.

10.  Accordingly, the questions have been modified in the following areas: budget (e.g. investments in computerisation, court fees, legal aid, budget preparation and allocation criteria); court users (e.g. available information, involvement of minors in the proceedings); court organisation (e.g. number of court of general jurisdiction and specialised courts, number of court geographic locations); IT (e.g. availability and usage of ICT tools); caseflow management and timeframes (e.g. caseflow for public prosecutors, asylum seekers and right to entry and stay for aliens); career of judges and public prosecutors (e.g. recruitment and promotion, disciplinary proceedings, salary, status, training).

11.  The OECD has also proposed some modifications to the questionnaire. In particular, these concern legal aid and gender equality. A Working Group specific meeting will be organised to discuss these suggestions.

12.  The Secretariat refers that, before the meeting of the Working Group, it has organised various specific meetings with representatives from legal professions that are observers of the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL (Council of the Bars and Law Societies of the European Union  - CCBE, International Union of Judicial Officers - UIHJ, Council of the Notariats of the European Union - CNEU, European Expertise and Expert Institute - EEEI). The observers have suggested some modifications of the questionnaire to deepen the understanding of their specific area of interest. Discussions between the Working Group and representatives of these professions followed the presentation of these changes.

13.  Christophe KOLLER (Switzerland) recalls the necessity to avoid expanding the questionnaire. He proposes to try to identify the parts of the questionnaire which could be asked to the national correspondent only every two cycles.

14.  The Secretariat recalls that the draft questionnaire will be presented to the CEPEJ plenary meeting (8^th  December) for its adoption and that the explanatory notes of the questionnaire will be revised consequently.

15.  The Working Group entrusts the Secretariat to continue work on the questionnaire according to the indications given during the meeting. It also entrusts the Secretariat to pursue the work with OECD and representatives of the judicial professions until the next meeting.

16.  The Secretariat explains that the launch of the questionnaire in March was successful in the previous cycle. The Working group agrees to follow the same calendar of the previous cycle. The launch of the new evaluation cycle should take place in March 2021 and data should be collected between March and October 2021.

IV.       SPECIFIC STUDY OF THE JUDICIAL PROFESSIONALS

17.  As for the previous cycle, the data regarding notaries, enforcement agents and experts have been prepared and sent by the Secretariat to the representatives of these professions (CNUE, UIHJ, EEEI). They will prepare the CEPEJ specific studies.

18.  The UIHJ has recently sent the first proposal of a specific study based on 2018 data. This draft will be presented to the Working Group either by written procedure or during the next meeting in view of its publication on CEPEJ-STAT and CEPEJ Website.   

V.         COOPERATION WITH EUROPEAN COMMISSION

19.  The Secretariat informs the Working Group about the progress of activities undertaken in cooperation with European Commission (EC), in particular the EC Justice Scoreboard and the Dashboard Western Balkans:

·         The questionnaire for the EC Justice Scoreboard has slightly been changed for the 2019 data collection. In particular, it no longer includes the questions on the budget and reforms of judicial system. Nevertheless, it includes questions about judges and prosecutor’s salaries.

·         The first part of the CEPEJ Report for the Scoreboard (data analysis tables and comments) have been sent to the EC in mid-November, in line with the agreed timetable. The tables present data from 2012 to 2019 (the 2010 data have been excluded in this year’s analysis, as agreed with EC). A revised version of the tables and the country profiles together with the comments will be sent to the EC by the end of December.

·         The first evaluation cycle for the Dashboard Western Balkans has been completed. A CEPEJ expert has produced Assessment reports about the capacity to meet deadlines and collect data of each beneficiary (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Kosovo*[1]). These Assessment reports have been shared with the beneficiaries and will be used as a basis for the forthcoming capacity-building activities.

·         The Dashboard questionnaire has slightly been modified for the 2020 cycle. This has been presented, together with the explanatory notes, during the Steering Committee meeting that took place on 16^th October. The new cycle of data collection has been opened in October and it will be closed on 1^st March 2021.

20.  The Secretariat informs the Working Group that a negotiation requested by the EC for a new Dashboard for the “Eastern Partnership” is taking place. The new Dashboard would involve the collection and analysis of data on functioning of judicial systems in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Republic of Moldova, Ukraine. This exercise would be based on the Dashboard Western Balkans model. The Secretariat will provide more details on this during the next CEPEJ-GT-EVAL meeting.

VI.       REQUESTS TO ACCESS TO DATA

21.  The Secretariat has received two formal requests to share parts of its database:(i) by an organization of the Russian Federation, the Strategy Partners Group, for detailed data on the use of information technology in the European courts (for the years 2014 and 2016) as well as for the methodology used to calculate the IT index. The data will be compared with the Russian data; (ii) by the City University of London (United Kingdom), for the 2016 data on the number of women in their judicial systems. These data will be used to examine the connection between women in the judicial system and the rates of violence.

22.  After discussion, the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL Working Group decides to reply favorably to these requests.

VII.      EXCHANGES OF VIEWS REGARDING TRAINING ON CEPEJ EVALUATION TOOLS

23.  The Secretariat recalls that the development on trainings tools is part of the new mandate of each CEPEJ Working Group. The Working Group decides to postpone this discussion to the next meeting of the Working Group and asks the Secretariat to identify some potential topics for the discussion.

VIII.      ANY OTHER BUSINESS

24.  The Working Group agrees to meet again at the end of January 2021 (ad hocmeeting) and organize the meeting with the National Correspondents in the spring 2021. Proposals for dates will be send by the Secretariat to the Working Group.

APPENDIX I

DRAFT AGENDA /PROJET D’ORDRE DU JOUR

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

2. Information by the members of the Working Group and the Secretariat / Information des membres du groupe de travail et du Secrétariat

3. Summary of the 2018 – 2020 evaluation cycle / Bilan du cycle d’évaluation 2018 – 2020

4. 2020 – 2022 evaluation cycle / Cycle d’évaluation 2020 – 2022

-       Preparation of the new questionnaire / Préparation du nouveau questionnaire

o    Proposal of changes (summary of the previous cycle) / propositions de changements (bilan du cycle précédent)

o    Proposal from the professional observers / propositions des observateurs professionels

-       Structure and timetable of the next report / Structure et le calendrier du prochain rapport

 

5. Specific Study on the judicial professionnals / Etude spécifique sur les professionnels de la justice

6. Cooperation with European Commission / Coopération avec la Commission Européenne

7. Requests to acces to data / Demandes d’accès aux données

8. Exchanges of views regarding training on CEPEJ evaluation tools/ Echanges de vues sur la formation sur les outils CEPEJ en matière d’évaluation

9.             Any other business / Questions diverses

APPENDIX II

List of Participants / Liste des participants

Members / Membres

Juan Fernando ARMENGOT IBORRA, Letrado de la Administración de Justicia Asesor, Ministerio de Justicia, MADRID, ESPAGNE

Joanne BATTISTINO, Ministry of Justice and Home Affairs, The Law Courts, VALLETTA

Simone KREβ, Vice-President, Landgericht Köln, KÖLN, GERMANY

Christophe KOLLER, Directeur opérationnel, ESEHA, BERNE, SUISSE

Jaša VRABEC, Head of the Office for Court Management Development, Supreme Court, LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA (President of the 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, ZAGREB, CROATIA

***

SCIENTIFIC EXPERTS / EXPERTS SCIENTIFIQUES

Victoria MERTIKOPOULOU, Advisor, EU and Competition, Regulatory, Compliance, Kyriakides Georgopoulos Law Firm, ATHENS, GREECE

Raffaella CALO’, Judge, Ministry of Justice, ROME, ITALY

***

Observers / Observateurs

COUNCIL OF THE BARS AND LAW SOCIETIES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION / CONSEIL DES BARREAUX EUROPÉENS (CCBE)

Stéphanie ALVES,Conseiller juridique senior

Simone CUOMO, Conseiller juridique senior,

COUNCIL OF THE NOTARIATS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION (CNEU) / CONSEIL DES NOTARIATS DE L’UNION EUROPEENNE (CNUE)

Geertjan SARNEEL, Meijling & Sarneel Notarissen en Adviseurs

Susanne VIGGRIA-KRAEMER, Legal adviser, CNEU

EUROPEAN EXPERTISE AND EXPERT INSTITUTE / INSTITUT EUROPEEN DE L’EXPERTISE ET DE L’EXPERT (EEEI)

Nico KEIJSER, LL.M. BBA CDPO, Vice-President of EEEI

Eric PARIZE, Expert Consultant en système d'information Apologised/ Excusé

Alain NUEE, Président du comité d'Orientation

European Union of Rechtspfleger / Union européenne des greffiers de justice et Rechtspfleger (EUR)

Wolfgang LAEMMER, Président

INTERNATIONAL UNION OF JUDICIAL OFFICERS / UNION INTERNATIONALE DES HUISSIERS DE JUSTICE ET OFFICIERS JUDICIAIRES (UIHJ)

Patrick GIELEN, Huissier de justice

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) / L'Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques (OCDE)

Tatyana TEPLOVA, Senior Counsellor, Head, Governance for Gender, Justice and Inclusiveness

MOROCCO / MAROC

Asmae REGRAGUY, Ministère de la justice de Maroc, Chef de la Division de l’Evaluation et de la Modernisation

***

INVITED DELEGATIONS / DELEGATIONS INVTEES

MOROCCO / MAROC

Mohammed OUKHLIFA, Présidence du Ministère Public Apologised/ Excusé

Mohamed LAMRABET, Chef d'unité de contrôle judiciaire et suivi des rapports d'évaluation des performances, Présidence du Ministère Public

EGYPT / EGYPTE

Mohamed RASLAN, Vice-President, Council of State

***

SECRETARIAT

Justice and Legal Co-operation Department / Service de la Coopération judiciaire et juridique

Muriel DECOT, Secretary of the CEPEJ / Secrétaire de la CEPEJ Apologised/ Excusé

Christel SCHURRER, Secretary of the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL / Secrétaire du CEPEJ-GT-EVAL

Lidija NAUMOVSKA, Statistician / Statisticienne

Milan NIKOLIC, Administrator / Administrateur

Federica VIAPIANA, Administrator / Administratrice

Daniela ZOL, Statistician / Statisticienne

Guergana LAZAROVA-DECHAUX, Legal officer / Juriste

Annette SATTEL, Administration and Networks / Administration et Réseaux

Anna KHROMOVA, Assistant / Assistante