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Strasbourg, 9 October 2019

CEPEJ-BU(2019)3

EUROPEAN COMMISSION FOR THE EFFICIENCY OF JUSTICE

(CEPEJ)

34th meeting of the Bureau

Strasbourg, 9 October 2019

MEETING REPORT

Report prepared 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 34th meeting in Strasbourg on 9 October 2019, with Mr Ramin Gurbanov (Azerbaijan), President of the CEPEJ, in the Chair. 

2.    The following Bureau members were also present:

§  Ms Laetitia Brunin (France), member;

§  Mr Francesco Depasquale (Malta), member.

Ms Ivana Borzova (Czech Republic), Vice-President of the CEPEJ, had apologised for her absence.

3.    The agenda appears in Appendix I.

1.   Information from Bureau members and the Secretariat

4.    The Bureau took note of the various changes within the CEPEJ Secretariat which had taken place as of 1 July 2019: in particular, Ms Muriel Décot, the former Co-Secretary, had become Secretary in place of Mr Stéphane Leyenberger, who had left the CEPEJ and moved to GRECO. Ms Ioana Voelkel co-ordinated the team and the assistants’ work.

5.    The Bureau exchanged views on the challenges faced by the Secretariat, in different respects, in recruiting the staff necessary for carrying out the tasks entrusted to the CEPEJ following the reorganisation of the Secretariat at the beginning of July, as well as in implementing the co-operation programmes. The Bureau would like the President of the CEPEJ to draw the Committee of Ministers’ attention to this issue at the hearing scheduled for the afternoon of 9 October.

6.    Following the exchange of views with the President of the European Court of Human Rights and some of its judges at the last CEPEJ plenary meeting (13 June 2019), two points attracted the attention of the Bureau: (i) the fact that CEPEJ tools were often mentioned in the Court’s decisions, a practice which should be encouraged; (ii) the need expressed by some judges to obtain certain statistical data deriving from the CEPEJ evaluation exercise.

7.    Closer co-operation with the Registry of the Court could be proposed in the form of an ad hoc working group whose main aim would be to better determine the respective needs. It was noted that such co-operation fitted in perfectly with the tasks entrusted to the CEPEJ in Resolution Res(2002)12 establishing the CEPEJ. In this context, it was suggested that an expert be tasked with carrying out a study on the extent to which the CEPEJ was mentioned in the decisions of the Court and with making proposals on how the CEPEJ and the Court could collaborate more closely.

8.    The Bureau suggested that, at the same time, the Secretariat initiate similar co-operation with the Department for the Execution of Judgments of the Court.

2.    Evaluation of judicial systems

9.    In connection with the new format to be used by the evaluation report, the Bureau stressed the need to launch a call for experts, which would include a very detailed explanation of the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL’s new expectations: a shorter written report focusing on more specific topics that contained shorter and more dynamic comments highlighting the general trends. Individual country factsheets summarising the state of the judicial system in each state or entity participating in the exercise would be included.

10.  The Bureau instructed the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL to identify these experts as soon as possible so as to familiarise them with using CEPEJ-STAT before it was updated with the 2018 data.

11.  The Bureau took note of the launch, at the beginning of October, of the first round of the Dashboard for the Western Balkans and hoped that the new indicators drawn up by the Evaluation Group in conjunction with GRECO would make it possible to carry out the planned evaluation of the integrity of the judicial systems concerned.

12.  The Bureau stressed the importance of the CEPEJ’s co-operation activities in relation to evaluation, as they highlighted its unique expertise and ensured a high profile for all the work done by the CEPEJ. In this respect, it instructed the Secretariat to prepare a draft co-operation agreement with the OECD, following its request, concerning the evaluation of the judicial systems of some South American states.

3.    SATURN Centre for judicial time management

13.  The Bureau was informed of the progress made by the CEPEJ-SATURN Group in relation to case-weighting and current discussions on the definition of the term. To continue to work effectively on this issue, it was suggested that a specific workshop be held in Paris on 24 January 2020 to hear from national experts from states which already had collective case-weighting systems.

14.  In the Bureau’s view, the SATURN Group should work more concretely on the dashboards to be put in place in courts, as this work was eagerly awaited by national authorities and European courts.

15.  The Bureau suggested that priority be given to these two activities, as they were intended to produce concrete tools for courts, which was an essential task of the CEPEJ. The work on the role of the parties and Articles 5 and 6 could be continued, even though it was not easy to see at this stage what concrete tools might result from it.

16.  It was also stressed that the CEPEJ pilot courts needed to be encouraged to contribute more effectively to the work of the CEPEJ working groups; it was, in particular, proposed in this context that they be grouped together by competences or areas of interest to improve the rate of replies when they were asked for input.

17.  The Bureau instructed the Secretariat to prepare an Action Plan on the tools to be prepared by the Group for 2020 and 2021 for inclusion in the programme of activities due to be adopted by the CEPEJ at its next plenary meeting in December.

4.    Quality of justice

18.  The Bureau welcomed the broad dissemination and success, in Europe and even beyond, of the CEPEJ European Ethical Charter for the use of artificial intelligence in judicial systems and their environment. It took note of the progress made in the follow-up intended for implementing the principles contained in the Charter, namely their operationalisation and the feasibility study on a possible certification mechanism for artificial intelligence applications in the justice sector. It instructed the CEPEJ-GT-QUAL to continue this work by ensuring on an ongoing basis that developments in this regard always respected the competences and tasks assigned to the CEPEJ by the Committee of Ministers.

19.  The Bureau also stressed that it was important for the CEPEJ-GT-QUAL to continue its other work on the quality of justice in general which did not concern artificial intelligence (breaking judges’ isolation, diversity in the recruitment of judges, the central position of court users in judicial proceedings, especially in civil matters, communication with court users, etc.) and was intended to lead to the preparation of concrete tools that were also eagerly awaited.

5.    Mediation

20.  The Secretariat informed the Bureau of the progress made by the CEPEJ-GT-MED and, in particular, of the finalisation of the training programmes on mediation for judges, lawyers and notaries, to be submitted to the CEPEJ for adoption at its next plenary meeting. It welcomed the establishment of a Network of contact persons on mediation in all member states.

6.    Definition of the terms used by the CEPEJ

21.  The Bureau took note of the fact that the meeting to be held in Lisbon (Portugal) on 14 October would finalise the draft Glossary of the terms used by the CEPEJ, which would be placed on the agenda of the next plenary meeting for adoption.

7.    Co-operation programmes

22.  The Secretariat informed the Bureau about the implementation of the various co-operation programmes other than those which strictly involved CEPEJ evaluation of judicial systems, whether ongoing (Spain, Malta, Tunisia, Azerbaijan, Albania and Kosovo*) or future (Republic of Moldova, Slovakia, Lithuania, Georgia and Kazakhstan).

23.  The Bureau was informed that continuation of co-operation with Morocco was currently being negotiated with the European Union. In addition, at the request of the Egyptian Council of State, following an initial evaluation visit in March, co-operation could be put in place quickly, as long as appropriate funding was secured.

8.    European Day of Justice/Crystal Scales of Justice

 

24.  For the 2019 European Day of Justice, a joint European Union/Council of Europe activity held on 25 October each year, customisable flyers had been prepared in 23 languages by the European Commission and made available on the CEPEJ webpage. The programmes of the events held in Belgium, Croatia, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Malta, Norway and the Slovak Republic had been published.

25.  For the 2019 Crystal Scales of Justice Prize, the CEPEJ had registered 43 applications from 20 countries. Following a jury meeting in Paris on 20 June 2019, four initiatives had been shortlisted and would participate in the award ceremony to be held in Oslo on 25 October, upon the invitation of Norway, which had won the 2018 Crystal Scales of Justice Prize:

·       “Harmonisation of processes: a response that reconciles the efficiency of the public service of Justice and well-being at work”, Court of First Instance of Luxembourg, Belgium;

·       “Digital justice”, Sub-Directorate-General for New Technologies. Directorate General of Justice Modernisation, Technological Development, Recovery and Asset Management (Ministry of Justice), Spain;

·       “Mediation in criminal justice; referrals by prosecutors in the prosecutorial phase and referrals by judges in the presentencing phase”, National Co-ordinator on Mediation in Criminal Cases, Netherlands;

·       “Improving the quality of justice (IQ Justice)”, Supreme Court, Slovenia.

26.  The winner’s name would be revealed at the award ceremony. The representatives of the winning initiatives would present their projects at the CEPEJ plenary meeting.

27.  The members of the Bureau stressed the need to produce videos of the four winning initiatives so as to better disseminate the good practices that they involved. It was also suggested that thought be given to the idea of publicising all the initiatives that had applied, as they were also likely to involve best practices which could be transposed into other judicial systems.  

28.  On 4 October 2019, the CEPEJ had also officially launched the Junior Crystal Scales of Justice Prize, which was the result of a partnership concluded in 2018 by the Faculty of Law, Political Science and Management of Strasbourg University and the CEPEJ Secretariat.

29.  It was pointed out that this competition was open to students in law faculties in Council of Europe member states and states with observer status with the CEPEJ. The aim of the prize was to make students reflect on future methods for establishing high-quality justice and improving the functioning of judicial systems. It complemented the existing Crystal Scales of Justice Prize, which was open to justice professionals regarding initiatives which had already been implemented and yielded results.

  1. 2nd conference on execution held by the UIHJ

30.  The Secretariat announced that the UIHJ colloquy would be held on 4 December on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the CEPEJ guidelines on execution, in the same format as the first colloquy held in 2014.

31.  The members of the CEPEJ were asked to indicate to the Secretariat whether they wished to participate in the event, to which many judicial officers had been invited by the UIHJ.

10.  Representation of the CEPEJ in other fora

32.  The Bureau pointed out that it relied on the Secretariat to assess requests for the CEPEJ to be represented in different events related to the functioning of justice held in Europe and all around the world.

33.  To date, the CEPEJ had been represented in more than 60 fora in 2019, which was a significant increase requiring ever-greater availability on the part of the members of the CEPEJ, its working groups and the Secretariat. However, this played an effective part in disseminating CEPEJ tools in Europe and even beyond.

11.  Individual complaints submitted to the CEPEJ concerning justice matters

34.  The Secretariat stated that no other specific complaint appropriate to its remit had been received for further examination by the Bureau.

12. Other business

The CEPEJ website

35.  The Bureau thanked Annette Sattel for her excellent work in constantly updating the website and raising the CEPEJ’s profile on social media.

36.  It wanted the website to be altered so that the CEPEJ tools could be found more easily, without first having to go to the page of the working group which had prepared them. The current website was geared more towards use by the members of the CEPEJ or persons who were already familiar with its work. The tools should be accessible by means of key words.

37.  The Bureau suggested that the Secretariat ask each working group to submit a list of the most important tools, which would be directly accessible on the main page of the website.

38.  The Bureau would examine the proposed new website at its next meeting.

Plenary meeting (5-6 December 2019)

39.  With a view to drawing up the 2020-2021 programme of activities which would include the working groups’ terms of reference, the Bureau proposed that at the next CEPEJ plenary meeting (5-6 December 2019), the chairs of each working group present future activity themes, for the short and medium term.  A discussion would be held on the matter at a dinner on 4 December 2019. A document should be circulated beforehand among the members of the Bureau on the basis of the priorities indicated in advance by the chairs of the working groups.

40.  An Action Plan should be prepared at the end of the meeting, to be presented at the plenary the following day for the purpose of adopting the programme of activities.

The June 2020 plenary meeting

41.  The Bureau asked Laetitia Brunin to thank the French authorities on its behalf for their invitation to hold the June 2020 plenary meeting in Versailles. A half-day colloquy on a topic to be decided, to which French judges would be invited, would be held prior to the plenary. The meeting could be held in the auditorium of the Château de Versailles and the colloquy could be opened by the French Minister for Justice. The initiative officially came from the First President and the General Prosecutor of Versailles Court of Appeal. Laetitia Brunin would keep the Secretariat informed of the availability of the auditorium in June, which would enable the exact date of the plenary to be set.

42.  The colloquy could be an opportunity to launch the updated CEPEJ website, and to provide information on future topics to be examined by the CEPEJ, such as a new version of the future evaluation report and the case-weighting system, for example.

Next Bureau meeting

43.  The next meeting of the Bureau would be held in Paris on 23 January 2020


Annexe I

AGENDA / ORDRE DU JOUR

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

2.    Information by the President of the CEPEJ, members of the Bureau and the Secretariat / Informations du Président de la CEPEJ, des membres du Bureau et du Secrétariat

3.    Evaluation of judicial systems / Evaluation des systèmes judiciaires 

§  New presentation of the Evaluation Report / Nouvelle présentation du rapport d’évaluation

§  Timetable for the 2018-2020 evaluation cycle / Calendrier des travaux pour le cycle d'évaluation 2018-2020

§  Cooperation with the EC for the Justice Scoreboard and for the Western Balkans Dashboard / Coopération avec la CE pour le Tableau de bord de la justice et le Dashboard dans les Balkans de l’Ouest

§  Cooperation with OECD / Coopération avec l’OCDE

§  Futur work / Travaux futurs

4.    SATURN Centre / Centre SATURN

§  Information on the ongoing activities / Information sur les activités en cours

§  Futur work / Travaux futurs

§  Cooperation with the CEPEJ Network of pilot courts / Coopération avec le Réseau des tribunaux-référents de la CEPEJ

5.    Quality of Justice / Qualité de la Justice

§  Information on the ongoing activities / Information sur les activités en cours

§  Futur work / Travaux futurs

6.    Mediation / Médiation

§  Information on the ongoing activities / Information sur les activités en cours

§  Futur work / Travaux futurs

7.    Harmonisation of the definitions used by CEPEJ / Harmonisation des définitions utilisées par la CEPEJ

8.    Crystal Scales of Justice Prix /Prix de la Balance de cristal

9.    Co-operation programmes / Programmes de coopération

     

10.  Representation of the CEPEJ in other fora / Représentation de la CEPEJ dans d'autres fora

11.  Individual complaints submitted to the CEPEJ concerning justice matters / Plaintes individuelles adressées à la CEPEJ sur des questions relatives au fonctionnement de la justice

12.  Any other business / Questions diverses

§  Organisation of the next CEPEJ plenary meeting (4-6 December 2019) / Organisation de la prochaine réunion plénière de la CEPEJ (4-6 décembre 2019)

§  Organisation of the CEPEJ plenary meeting of June 2020 / Organisation de la réunion plénière de la CEPEJ de juin 2020.