WORKING GROUP OF THE
CONSULTATIVE COUNCIL OF EUROPEAN JUDGES
(CCJE-GT)
Report of the 30th meeting
Strasbourg, 30 March – 1 April 2016
Document prepared by the Secretariat
Directorate General I - Human Rights and Rule of Law
I. INTRODUCTION
1. The Working Group of the Consultative Council of European Judges (CCJE-GT) held its 30th meeting in Strasbourg from 30 March to 1 April 2016. The meeting was chaired by Mr Duro SESSA (Croatia), Vice-President of the CCJE.
2. The agenda and the list of participants are appended to this report (Appendices I and II respectively).
II. COMMUNICATION BY THE PRESIDENT, MEMBERS OF THE BUREAU AND WORKING GROUP OF THE CCJE
3. Mr Nils ENGSTAD (Norway), President of the CCJE, welcomed the members of the Working Group and informed that Mr Jean-Claude WIWINIUS (Luxembourg), member of the CCJE Bureau, had recently been elected as President of the High Court of Luxembourg, and he would then become at the same time President of the Constitutional Court. He would take up his duties in August 2016.
4. The President also informed that Mr Timo ESKO (Finland) had recently been elected as President of the Finnish Supreme Court. Both Mr WIWINIUS and Mr ESKO would continue working as members of the CCJE in respect of their countries.
5. The President proceeded to inform about his participation in a forum on judicial accountability in Geneva (14-15 December 2015), opening of the judicial year of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (29 January 2016), Conference on the Council of Europe Strategy for the Rights of the Child in Sofia (5-6 April 2016) and the High-Level Conference of Ministers of Justice and representatives of the judiciary on “Strengthening judicial independence and impartiality as a pre-condition for the rule of law in Council of Europe member states” in Sofia (21-22 April 2016)[1].
6. The President emphasised that, in the course of the Conference in Sofia (21-22 April 2016), the Council of Europe Plan of Action on strengthening judicial independence and impartiality in member states, prepared at the initiative of the Secretary General, would be presented and discussed. The Plan of Action was based on several important documents including the report entitled “Challenges for judicial independence and impartiality in the member states of the Council of Europe” prepared jointly by the Bureau of the CCJE and the Bureau of the Consultative Council of European Prosecutors (CCPE) at the initiative of the Secretary General[2].
7. The Secretariat briefed the Working Group members on the ongoing process of preparation of the Plan of Action which had been scheduled for adoption by the Committee of Ministers on 13 April 2016. The members of the Working Group noted that possibly the Action Plan would have some influence on the CCJE work and that the CCJE may have to be more responsive to the various initiatives from outside.
8. Mr Orlando AFONSO (Portugal) informed the Working Group that he participated, in January 2016, in a conference in Warsaw on the independence of the judiciary, and that he had finished writing a book (in Portuguese) concerning the European vision of the modalities and timeframes of justice, including the overview of the Council of Europe and CCJE standards and comments on the 18 Opinions adopted so far by the CCJE. The book would be officially launched by the Supreme Court.
9. Mr Bart van LIEROP (Netherlands) informed the Working Group that a book on judicial autonomy in Europe (Justizielle Autonomie in Europa), written by Ms Mareike JESCHKE (Germany), was published in 2016 in Germany. In this book, the meetings between the German "Judicial System" Commission and the CCJE and representatives from The Netherlands, Italy, Poland and Switzerland were reported and analysed.
10. Mr Viktor GORODOVENKO (Ukraine) presented to the Working Group the publication of Ukrainian translation of all CCJE Opinions adopted so far, carried out by the Council of Europe project on “Strengthening the system of judicial accountability in Ukraine” within the framework of the co-operation activities in Ukraine.
III. PREPARATION OF THE CCJE OPINION NO. 19 ON THE ROLE OF COURT PRESIDENTS
11. Mr Duro SESSA (Croatia), Vice-President of the CCJE, opened the discussion and presented the two key documents prepared by Mr Marco FABRI, scientific expert of the CCJE: preliminary draft of the Opinion No. 19 (document CCJE-GT(2016)1Prov) and the synthesis of the replies of members states to the questionnaire for the preparation of the Opinion No. 19 (document CCJE-GT(2016)2). The members of the Working Group highly praised both documents and also noted that a record number of 38 member states had responded to the questionnaire in 2016 (compilation of responses has been published on the CCJE website: document CCJE(2016)1).
12. The Working Group started by discussing the Opinion’s significance, objectives, scope and main areas. They underlined the importance of the Opinion’s topic and that the responses from the member states to the questionnaire contained a lot of useful information leading to one main conclusion that the role and tasks of court presidents were quite different in various legal systems.
13. It was emphasised that this would be a rather difficult Opinion to prepare. Reference was made to the Opinion No. 1(2001) on standards concerning the independence of the judiciary and the irremovability of judges, and to the Opinion No. 18(2015) on the position of the judiciary and its relation with the other powers of state in a modern democracy. The task of the CCJE was to prepare the Opinion No. 19 in such a way that it addresses the role of the presidents of the courts but does not introduce the concept of hierarchy to the detriment of judicial independence. While the courts were public organisations like other organs of a sovereign state, the difference was that in other organs, the power was concentrated, whereas in the courts, it was diffused because of the independence of judicial decision-making and other principles of the judicial power.
14. The Working Group noted that in the past, the topic of the presidents of courts was already going to be put several times on the agenda of the CCJE. The management of courts should be in the hands of judges, however, in some systems, management was put in the hands of other institutions. In addition to the external independence of judges, the issue of their internal independence was also focused upon.
15. The members of the Working Group proceeded to discuss relevant experience in their national judicial systems including the role of the presidents of courts as representatives of the judiciary, their managerial tasks, relations between presidents of courts and national executive authorities, internal independence and relations with the judges of the court. Management could imply different things; the overriding objective is a fair trial within a reasonable time. The court president may also serve as a mediator between judges and outside actors and institutions.
16. The Working Group agreed that it was self-evident that the court president should himself/herself be a judge, and that all requirements for a judge must be met in the process of election or appointment of the court president. As regards his/her tasks, there were various questions, for example, concerning the allocation of cases. Reference was made to the Report 2013-2014 of the European Network of Councils for the Judiciary (ENCJ) containing minimum judicial standards on allocation of cases.
17. After general remarks, the members of the Working Group proceeded to develop in detail the structure of the Opinion. The final structure approved by the Working Group (document CCJE-GT(2016)1Prov3) included the chapters on the role and tasks of court presidents (representing the court to outside institutions; relations within the court: independence of judges; managerial role of court presidents), election/selection (body to elect/select the court president; term of office; removal from office). A separate chapter would be dedicated to the presidents of Supreme Courts. The Opinion would finish with relevant conclusions and recommendations. All these chapters would be extremely detailed, each one containing a lot of sub-chapters.
18. The Working Group entrusted Mr SESSA and the Secretariat to work together to develop the Opinion based on this detailed structure. It was agreed that the members of the Working Group would receive the draft by 27 May 2016, and they would send back their comments by 7 June 2016, in view of the next meeting scheduled on 15-17 June 2016.
IV. OTHER ITEMS
19. Mr José Francisco COBO SÀENZ (Spain) stated that he had a confirmation that the CCJE Working Group would be invited to hold its next meeting on 15-17 June 2016 in Madrid, hosted by the Spanish General Council of the Judiciary.
APPENDIX I
AGENDA / ORDRE DU JOUR
1. Opening of the meeting / Ouverture de la réunion
2. Adoption of the agenda / Adoption de l’ordre du jour
3. Communication by the President, members of the CCJE and the Secretariat / Communication du Président, des membres du CCJE et du Secrétariat
4. Preparation of the draft Opinion No. 19 on « the role of court presidents » / Préparation du projet de l’Avis No. 19 sur « le rôle des présidents de tribunaux »
5. Any other business / Divers
APPENDIX II
LIST OF PARTICIPANTS
MEMBERS OF THE CCJE-GT / MEMBRES DU CCJE-GT
Mr Orlando AFONSO, Juge à la Cour Suprême, Almada, PORTUGAL
Mr George BIRMINGHAM, Judge, Court of Appeal, Dublin, IRELAND / IRLANDE
Mr José Francisco COBO SÀENZ, Magistrat, President of the 2nd Seccion at the Audiencia Provincial (Navarra), Pamplona, SPAIN / ESPAGNE
Mr Viktor GORODOVENKO, President of the Court of Appeal of Zaporizhzhia Region, Zaporizhzhia, UKRAINE
Mr Bart van LIEROP, Senior Vice-President of the Administrative High Court for Trade and Industry (College van Beroep voor het bedrijfsleven), The Hague, NETHERLANDS / PAYS-BAS
Mr Mats MELIN, President of the Swedish Supreme Administrative Court, Stockholm, SWEDEN / SUEDE
Ms Aida Rodica POPA, Judge of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, Bucharest, ROMANIA / ROUMANIE
Mr Gerhard REISSNER, President of the Austrian Judges Association, President of the District Court of Floridsdorf, Vienna, AUSTRIA / AUTRICHE
Ms Maiia ROUSSEVA, Judge of the Supreme Court of Cassation, Sofia, BULGARIA / BULGARIE
Excused / excusée
MEMBERS OF THE CCJE-BU /MEMBRES DU CCJE-BU
Ms Nina BETETTO, Judge, Vice-President of the Supreme Court, Ljubljana, SLOVENIA / SLOVENIE
Mr Nils A. ENGSTAD, Judge, Halogaland Court of Appeal, Tromsø, NORWAY / NORVEGE -(President of the CCJE/ Président du CCJE)
Mr Duro SESSA, Judge, Supreme Court, Zagreb, CROATIA / CROATIE - (Vice-President of the CCJE/ Vice-Président du CCJE)
Mr Jean-Claude WIWINIUS, Vice-Président à la Cour Supérieure de Justice, Luxembourg, LUXEMBOURG
SCIENTIFIC EXPERT / EXPERT CONSULTANT
Mr Marco FABRI, Senior Researcher, Research Institute on Judicial Systems, National Research Council, Bologna, ITALY / ITALIE
COUNCIL OF EUROPE’S SECRETARIAT /
SECRETARIAT DU CONSEIL DE L’EUROPE
Directorate General of Human Rights and Rule of Law /
Direction Générale des droits de l’homme et de l’état de droit
Division for the independence and efficiency of justice /
Division pour l’indépendance et l’efficacité de la justice
E-mail: [email protected]
Mr Stéphane LEYENBERGER, Secretary of the CCJE / Secrétaire du CCJE
Tel: + 33 (0)3 90 21 44 55, E-mail: sté[email protected]
Mr Artashes MELIKYAN, Co-Secretary of the CCJE /Co-Secrétaire du CCJE
Tel: + 33 (0)3 90 21, E-mail: [email protected]
Ms Anna KHROMOVA, Assistant / Assistante
Tel: +33 (0)3 88 41 48 39, E-mail: [email protected]
Ms Despina TRAMOUNTANI, Assistant / Assistante
Tel: +33 (0)3 90 21 62 95, E-mail: [email protected]
INTERPRETERS / INTERPRETES
Mr Grégoire DEVICTOR
Ms Chloé CHENETIER
Mr Jean-Jacques PEDUSSAUD