The UIHJ Attends Works of CEPEJ Working Group on Evaluation of Justice

 

 The CEPEJ-GT-EVAL is responsible within the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice of the Council of Europe (CEPEJ) to prepare questions, collect and process data used for the now necessary evaluation reports on judicial systems of the 47 member countries of the Council of Europe. These reports are conducted every two years. The fourth volume was published in September 2012. It relates to data collected in 2010.

The reports contain information on the profession of enforcement agent and the effectiveness of enforcement, in collaboration with the UIHJ. It is therefore with great interest that the UIHJ responded favourably to the invitation of the CEPEJ to attend the 23rd Meeting of the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL. Its purpose was to prepare the organization for the next evaluation cycle of the report to be published in September 2014.

The CEPEJ-GT-EVAL is chaired by Jean- Paul Jean, Judge at the French Court of cassation and professor at the University of Poitiers. It includes experts from various countries: Austria, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and the United Kingdom.

Perfectly framed by the Secretariat of the CEPEJ, the meeting was opened in the presence of Hanne Juncher, head of Justice and Legal Co-operation Department, DGI - Human Rights and Rule of Law, Division for the Independence and Efficiency of Justice of the Council of Europe. The UIHJ was represented by its First Secretary, Mathieu Chardon. Also present was the European Union of Rechtspfleger, represented by Vivien Whyte. Tunisia was invited in the framework of the South program, and was also in attendance. The country was represented by Amin Taha Barguaoui, Judge at the Court of Cassation, and Walid Ben Ali, Senior Engineer Statistician at the General Inspectorate of the Ministry of Justice.

The session took place in two stages. The first day was devoted to discuss the various topics brought to the agenda of the meeting. Among other issues, was the implementation of the 2012-2014 evaluation cycle and calendar, management of questions, and management of corrections. Was also discussed cooperation with the European Union on the EU Justice Scoreboard, the state of the on-going work of the SATURN Centre towards an observatory of judicial timeframes and of the CEPEJ-GT-QUAL Working Group on quality of justice, with regards to indicators for measuring quality of justice. Finally, information was exchanged regarding the CEPEJ co-operation program in the framework of the neighbourhood policy with Morocco, Tunisia and Jordan (The South Program). The UIHJ participates in the "reform of the service of documents in Morocco" part of this program.

On the second day, all national correspondents of the 47 member States as well as Israel, which will participate in next year's evaluation cycle, were invited at the Council of Europe to exchange views on the responses to the evaluation scheme prepared by the CEPEJ. Prior to the exchange, particularly open and participatory, Jean- Paul Jean recalled the principles of action of the CEPEJ-GT-EVAL, together with the Secretariat of the CEPEJ and Georg Stawa, Vice-President of the CEPEJ.

Asked by Jean- Paul Jean on the section of the report on enforcement of judgments, Mathieu Chardon said that the beneficial effects of the CEPEJ Guidelines of 17 December 2009 on enforcement and enforcement agents, of which the UIHJ is a tireless promoter, could be measured in each evaluation cycle, drawing with every passing day the outline of the European Judicial Officer.