27th Plenary Meeting of the CEPEJ

 

As is the case for fourteen years already, the CEPEJ organises its biannual plenary meeting at the Council of Europe. The UIHJ was invited to participate as a member permanent observer. It was represented by its Secretary General, Mathieu Chardon. The meeting was chaired by Georg Stawa, President of the CEPEJ, assisted by his board and his secretary, Stéphane Leyenberger.

A significant part of the agenda concerned the evaluation process of European judicial systems for the years 2014-2016. This process will end in October 2016 with the publication of the 2016 CEPEJ Report on European Judicial Systems. Each report (five have already been published) is a major event for the 47 member states of the Council of Europe. At its 26th Plenary Meeting, the CEPEJ had announced that the next report would be amended: shorter printed version but creation of a digital version available within a dynamic database of the CEPEJ, offering great opportunities for analysis to Internet users. This new approach has now become reality.

The report made during the 27th Plenary Meeting got everyone to agree on the advances and endless possibilities offered by this new interactive presentation. Among the innovations, it is now possible to extract from the hundreds of thousands of data any items and have them presented in Pdf format. This system of thematic isolation offers unprecedented comparative perspectives. The evaluation report will be officially presented on 6 October 2016. Everyone will have to wait until that day!

Like all participants in the meeting, Mathieu Chardon did not fail, on behalf of the UIHJ, to congratulate the CEPEJ for this breakthrough, a new source of inspiration for the coming years, placing the CEPEJ at the forefront of technology.

For its part, the Pilot Group of the SATURN Centre has started work to develop indicators on judicial timeframes, an ambitious project that will provide a framework to reduce delays in the matter.

The various areas of cooperation of the CEPEJ and the Council of Europe with the following countries were also discussed: Albania, Azerbaijan, Jordan, Kosovo, Moldova, Morocco, Turkey and Tunisia.

During the meeting, a partial replacement of the board members of the CEPEJ was made. Ramin Gurbanov (Azerbaijan) and Noel Rubotham (Ireland) were respectively elected Vice-President of the CEPEJ and board member. The UIHJ congratulates them in their new roles.

Finally, the Working Group on Quality of justice (CEPEJ-GT-QUAL) is very interested in Cyberjustice and started work on this theme. Prior to its 28th Plenary Meeting, the CEPEJ will host on 5 December 2016 a day of public forum on Cyberjustice. An event not to be misses by the UIHJ.