Participation of the UIHJ at the 15th Plenary Meeting of the CEPEJ

A New CEPEJ report on European Judicial Systems

The delegation of the UIHJ consisted in Roger Dujardin, Vice-President, and Mathieu Chardon, 1st Secretary. It has to be reminded that the CEPEJ is made up of representatives of each of the 47 Member States of the Council of Europe, as well as various authorities of the Council of Europe and permanent observer members, such as the UIHJ.
The agenda was extremely tight. The central point of the meeting was the discussion, item per item, of the 2010 CEPEJ report on European Judicial systems. Every two years, the CEPEJ indeed draws up an evaluation report on the efficiency of European Judicial systems. The next report - the third -, based on the 2008 data, will be made public on 25th October 2010, at the occasion of the 8th European Day for Civil Justice. It was decided that the report should remain confidential until this date. In the meantime, it is necessary to greet the work of the CEPEJ and to note that with the passing of years the reports become increasingly richer, more relevant and refined, together with an improved presentation. The CEPEJ report, which contains very interesting new data on enforcement, will be presented at the time of the permanent council of the UIHJ at the end of November 2010 in Paris. As regards enforcement, Roger Dujardin indicated that the UIHJ intended to collect information on this field near its members and that it would be interesting to share them with the CEPEJ.

The UIHJ, Ambassador of the CEPEJ Guide Lines on Enforcement

Quality of Justice was then approached. A study on the question of quality in courts was presented by François Paychère (Switzerland), President of the working group on Quality. Jean-Paul Jean, scientific expert (France), presented a draft handbook for courts wishing to conduct user's satisfaction surveys,
The Judicial Time Management was then discussed. Jacques Bühler, president of the pilot group (Switzerland), discussed the relevance to set up a European observatory of the times of procedure through quantitative and qualitative approached.
The co-operation with the European Union is very important for the CEPEJ. Elsa Garcia Maltras de Blas (Spain) and Dietger Geeraert (Belgium) presented the last developments within the European Union in the legal field. The adhesion of the European Union to the European Convention on Human Rights was equally approached within the framework of the reinforcement of synergies between the CEPEJ and the authorities of the European Union.
On 25th October 2010, day of the publication of the 2010 CEPEJ report will be held the 8th European Day for Civil Justice, Slovenia is organizing the headlining event of this demonstration, in particular with the handing-over of the European Crystal Scale of Justice prize.
Roger Dujardin spoke to greet the work of the CEPEJ and to say how much the UIHJ was attentive to all its different aspects, and in particular those relating to enforcement. He thanked the CEPEJ for having included the UIHJ in the working group which worked out the CEPEJ Guide Lines on enforcement, adopted in December 2009. The Vice-President of the UIHJ specified that the UIHJ was since then the ambassador of these guide lines near its members, including countries outside Europe. He declared that the UIHJ was at the disposal of the CEPEJ to renew this experience and to go forward as regards questions concerning the enforcement of legal decisions.
Speaking about the meetings that the CEPEJ was associated with, John Stacey, Vice-President of the CEPEJ, did not fail to recall that he represented the CEPEJ in Glasgow (Scotland) at the time of the European permanent council of the UIHJ in May 2010 where he presented the guide lines on enforcement. On the same subject, and illustrating the preceding remarks of Roger Dujardin, Mathieu Chardon indicated that the UIHJ was indeed the ambassador of the CEPEJ on each occasion, and in particular of its guide lines. He thus mentioned that they had been the subject of various presentations near the Member States of the UIHJ, in Europe but also in Africa, as well as of several publications.