17th Meeting of the CEPEJ-GT-QUAL

The UIHJ participated on 16 and 17 April 2015 at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg in the 17th meeting of the Working Group on Quality of Justice of the CEPEJ

The execution of court decisions is now part of the Working Group on Quality of Justice (CEPEJ-GT-QUAL) of the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ). Mathieu Chardon, 1st Secretary of the UIHJ, represented the UIHJ, observer member of this working group at this meeting.

The meeting was chaired by François Paychère, President of the CEPEJ-GT-QUAL. The Secretariat of the CEPEJ was represented by its Executive Secretary, Stephen Leyenberger with Clementina Barbaro, Secretariat of the CEPEJ-GT-QUAL, and Yannick Meneceur, Special Advisor of the CEPEJ secretariat. Besides the members and scientific experts of the working group, representatives of the European Commission, the Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), the European Union clerks, the Ministry of Justice of Tunisia, of the Institute Advanced Studies on Justice (IHEJ) and the Laboratory for Cyber Justice from the University of Montreal, attended the meeting.

Four major issues were on the agenda:
- How IT can improve the quality of court work?;
- Enforcement of court decisions;
- Right to an effective remedy under the European Convention on Human Rights and prospects for CEPEJ;
- Cooperation with the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) on the "Handbook on access to justice in Europe".

Concerning the execution of judgments, Guillaume Payan, scientific expert, lecturer at the Faculty of Law of Toulon (France), UIHJ consultant, has been charged by the CEPEJ to draft a Guide of Good Practice related to the Guidelines for a better the implementation of CoE's Recommendation on enforcement.

Mr Payan made a presentation of his work in the light of the history of the involvement of the Council of Europe on enforcement of court decisions. He recalled the 1997 Hornsby vs. Greece case in which the European Court of Human Rights has recognised that the execution of court decisions was an integral part of the right to fair trial under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. He then mentioned the recommendation of the Council of Europe Rec(2003)17 of 9 September 2003 on enforcement, then the CEPEJ Guidelines of 17 December 2009 on enforcement.

"What is good practice?" wondered Guillaume Payan. This term should be seen in a broad sense, that is to say, the practice that satisfies everyone, the one that allows fully meeting the objectives defined in the CEPEJ Guidelines on enforcement. This is to consider all sources of law, knowing that what works in one state will not necessarily work in another. He also said that to date, no country is in compliance with the 82 items contained in the Guidelines on enforcement.

Guillaume Payan said he based his work on the one hand on the data included in the Grand questionnaire UIHJ - 350 questions sent to the 85 member countries of the UIHJ and covering a wide range of data on the profession of enforcement agent and on enforcement measures - and also the report on the enforcement in the member countries of the UIHJ published by the UIHJ in November 2014.

Mr Payan then illustrated his work around four ideas:
- Controlling the enforcement process by the enforcement agents;
- Good understanding by the parties of the enforcement process;
- Quality of enforcement procedures and evaluation of the enforcement process;
- Glossary of legal terms on enforcement.

This presentation was followed by a discussion with the experts of the CEPEJ. In the light of this debate, the draft Guide to Good Practice will be reviewed again at the next meeting of the CEPEJ-GT-QUAL for a presentation during the plenary meeting of the CEPEJ in December 2015.

More information on http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/cooperation/cepej/default_EN.asp?