Leo Netten, president of the UIHJ, welcomed the participants and recalled how the UIHJ was committed to the training of its members.
He took over the terms of the
position paper issued by the UIHJ for the training of judicial officers in Europe and based on a multidisciplinary approach that makes the judicial officer justice a qualified professional that is to say, the product of a high level of training and therefore an essential element of the rule of law.
Training is useful to establish an inter-professional understanding, he said, but also to ensure its full place to enforcement of judgments.
As an echo of the themes of the two sessions of the day, mediation and the recast of Brussels I Regulation, he said that major international institutions such as the World Bank or Uncitral have integrated the UIHJ in the working groups on enforcement in the broadest sense, that is to say, for example including mediation.
As regards Brussels I, Member States have responded individually to the implementation of the new regulations and it is for international bodies like the UIHJ to establish the coordination of these reactions.
Françoise Andrieux, general secretary of the UIHJ, then presented the program for the day and invited the participants of the first round table to take the floor.
Anton Jongbloed, Professor at the University of Utrecht (the Netherlands), member of the Scientific Council of the UIHJ, made a theoretical presentation of the European Directive 2008/52/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2008 on certain aspects of mediation in civil and commercial matters.
Patrick Gielen, candidate judicial officer in Belgium, Ellin Villipus, judicial officer in Estonia and Françoise Andrieux, judicial officer in France, exposed in their respective countries how the Directive has been implemented and what is the role of the judicial officer as a mediator.
The topic of the afternoon workshop was the recast of Regulation 44/2001 (Brussels 1). Fanny Cornette, Tenure Researcher in French law, Delft University, gave a comprehensive and clear critical presentation. Jacinto Netto, Portuguese solicitador, Jeroen Nijenhuis, Dutch judicial officer, and Bernard Menut, French judicial officer and first vice-president of the UIHJ, developed the impacts of the reform on our profession in their respective countries.
Finally, as usual, Guillaume Payan, a lecturer at the University of Maine (France), UIHJ consultant, made an annual review of the European case law and the European legislation concerning our profession with his usual expertise
This day was more than ever dedicated to European topics for the delight of the participants.
