18th Plenary Meeting of the CEPEJ

 

The meeting was chaired by Georg Stawa (Austria), Vice President of the CEPEJ, assisted by the always very effective secretariat. The UIHJ was represented by its first secretary, Mathieu Chardon. After the introductory remarks, several representatives of member countries of the Council of Europe presented the recent developments in the judiciary. In Azerbaijan, for example, a court reform is underway. The representative of Azerbaijan introduced the newly constructed buildings to accommodate the courts. Germany raised the problem of excessive length of judicial proceedings in this country. A law that just passed is intended to shorten delays. The Act introduces the right of the defendant to be compensated in case of excessive length of judicial proceedings, without the need to provide proof of fault. In Lithuania, a number of reforms are underway, including one relating to a new distribution of the competence of some jurisdictions.
A study session was held in four workshops, in order to share common concepts for evaluating the functioning of court systems:
- Funding of the court system
- Judicial and non-judicial staff
- Case flow management
- And evaluation of the court and judge activity
The results of the work were later presented.
Georg Stawa presented the 2010-2012 cycle of the evaluation of European judicial systems. This cycle will be completed late 2011. The report is to be published in 2012.
The working groups informed the members of the CEPEJ on the work in progress: SATURN Centre on judicial time management, and quality of justice (CEPEJ-GT-EVAL).
In his speech, Mathieu Chardon insisted on the CEPEJ guidelines of 17 December 2009 on enforcement, which are constantly promoted by the UIHJ in each of its meetings. The first secretary of the UIHJ also informed the members of the CEPEJ of the next international congress of judicial officers to be held in Cape Town (South Africa), from 1 to 4 May 2012. He added that the CEPEJ guidelines would be at the heart of the work, and that a World code of enforcement would be also presented. Finally, our colleague unveiled the Grand questionnaire of the UIHJ. The questionnaire includes about 350 questions in all areas of the profession of judicial officers. It was sent to all representatives of the Member States of the UIHJ. The responses to date (currently 36 countries) has been processed and published on a dedicated webpage. Mathieu Chardon presented this webpage to the participants and gave them the access code for consultation, indicating that the UIHJ made this questionnaire available to all members of the CEPEJ.
 

 

Klaus Decker, representing the World Bank, presented the new project of the Legal Department of the World Bank, i.e. the creation of a Global Economic Forum on Justice and Development. This forum aims at establishing a permanent forum of legal exchanges, including a platform to facilitate these exchanges. The World Bank estimates correctly that law and justice are essential in the development process in countries. The exchange of experiences can only help promote a better understanding of the law. The World Bank intends to involve three types of partnership within this Forum: international organizations, regional organizations and some national organizations. Mr Decker said he was very interested in the presentation of the Grand questionnaire of the UIHJ which fits perfectly with the aims of the Forum.