The European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice Council of Europe (CEPEJ)
The European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) was established on 18 September 2002 with Resolution Res(2002)12 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.
The aim of the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (the CEPEJ) is an improvement of the efficiency and functioning of justice in the member States, and the development of the implementation of the instruments adopted by the Council of Europe to this end (b) the provision of more efficient use of international legal instruments of the Council of Europe concerning efficiency and fairness of justice.
The functioning of the CEPEJ is governed by its Statute.
Functions of the CEPEJ
- to analyse the results of the judicial systems
- to identify the difficulties they meet
- to define concrete ways to improve, on the one hand, the evaluation of their results, and, on the other hand, the functioning of these systems
- to provide assistance to member States, at their request
- to propose to the competent instances of the Council of Europe the fields where it would be desirable to elaborate a new legal instrument.
CEPEJ main objectives:
- identify and develop indicators, collecting and analyzing quantitative and qualitative data, identify measures and assessment tools;
- produce reports, statistics, best practices, guidelines, plans, opinions and general comments;
- establish links between research institutes and training centers;
- invitation, depending on the case, of an expert with any level skill or specialized NGO functioning within its jurisdiction and able as to assist in task setting, as well as performance of court hearings;
- create a network of professionals working in the field of justice.
CEPEJ methods
The Action Plan that was adopted at Third Summit (Warsaw, 16-17 May 2005), the Heads of States and Governments decided to develop evaluation criteria and facilitate the implementation of functions CEPEJ in order to help member states to deliver justice fairly and rapidly. They also asked the Council of Europe to strengthen cooperation with the European Union in the legal field, including cooperation with the CEPEJ.
The creation of the CEPEJ demonstrates the will of the Council of Europe to promote the Rule of Law and Fundamental Rights in Europe, on the basis of the European Convention on Human Rights, and especially its Articles 5 (Right to liberty and security), 6 (Right to a fair trial), 13 (Right to an effective remedy), 14 (Prohibition of discrimination)
The establishment of CEPEJ shows the intention of the Council of Europe not only to elaborate international legal instruments but also to promote a precise knowledge of the judicial systems in Europe and of the different existing tools which enables it to identify any difficulties and facilitate their solution.
The CEPEJ will have, among other duties, the task of continuing the on-going reflexion about the potential offered by new information technologies (IT) to improve the efficiency of justice.
The CEPEJ is composed of experts from all the 47 member States of the Council of Europe and is assisted by a Secretariat.
Representatives of States not members of the Council of Europe may be admitted to its work as observers.
Observers:
States enjoying observer status to the Council of Europe are de facto members to the CEPEJ:
- Holy See (Vatican)
- Canada
- Japan
- Mexico
- United States of America
Furthermore, the Committee of Ministers decided to grant the observer status to the following countries:
- Israel
- Morocco.
The CEPEJ Bureau (Mandate from 1st January 2015 to 31 December 2015)
Mr Georg STAWA (Austria) – President
Mr Irakli ADEISCHVILI (Georgia) - Vice President
Ms Ivana BORZOVA (Czech Republic)
Mr Ramin GURBANOV (Azerbaïdjan)
Each Member State in CEPEJ is represented by:
- The CEPEJ expert of the member state
The CEPEJ is composed of experts who are best able to contribute to its aims and functions, and who have in particular an in-depth knowledge of the administration, functioning and efficiency of civil, criminal and/or administrative justice. Each Member State of the Council of Europe shall appoint an expert to the CEPEJ. In general, he/she may be a representative of judicial or executive branch, with experience in the proper field, aware of matters relevant to the CEPEJ and knowledge of one of the two Council of Europe official languages (English or French).
An expert may participate in CEPEJ plenary with representatives from all member states that meet twice a year in order to discuss recent developments and legislative changes in the field of judiciary which have occurred in the last six months in the member states.
- National correspondents are entrusted with the coordination of the replies for their respective states, as well as they were considered to be main interlocutors of the CEPEJ Secretariat and the experts when collecting new figures.
The functions of national correspondent include: filling in the questionnaire and submitting it in the allocated time to the Secretariat, which includes annual monitoring of legislative changes in the judiciary, collecting statistical figures regarding activity of judicial, law enforcement and other state authorities; participate in annual meetings of the Network of national correspondents to discuss concrete ways of improving the system of judicial systems evaluation, the form and content of the questionnaire;
Data collection should be organised taking into account as far as possible the CEPEJ Evaluation Scheme so that answers can be provided recurrently to questions put as part of the process of evaluating European judicial systems. Attention should also be paid to the guidance in the Explanatory Note so as to ensure homogeneity of the concepts considered and measurement methods used.
In particular each national correspondent should make the necessary arrangements that would allow providing annual input to the corpus of key data of justice in Europe as defined by the CEPEJ:
1) Demographic and economic data:
- Inhabitants, GDP and average gross annual salary;
- Total annual budget allocated to all courts;
- Does the budget of the courts include the following items?
- Annual public budget allocated to salaries;
- Annual public budget allocated to computerisation;
- Annual public budget allocated to legal costs;
- Annual public budget allocated to court buildings;
- Annual public budget allocated to training and education;
- Annual public budget allocated to legal aid;
- Other (specify)
- Annual public budget allocated to the prosecution services.
- Is the budget allocated to the public prosecution included in the court budget?.
2) Legal Aid (Access to Justice):
- Annual number of legal aid (provided by public authorities) cases and annual public budget allocated to legal aid
- criminal cases;
- other than criminal cases;
- total number of legal aid cases.
3) Organisation of the court system and the public prosecution:
- Total number of Judges, non-judge staff and Rechtspfleger;
- Total number of Public prosecutors and non-prosecutor staff of the prosecution services;
- Level of computer facilities used within the courts.
4) The performance and workload of the courts and the public prosecution
- Number of cases regarding Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights (on duration and non-execution), for the year of reference;
- Total number of civil cases in courts;
- Litigious civil cases and administrative law cases in the courts;
- Number of cases received and treated by the public prosecutor;
- Number of criminal cases in the courts.
5) Execution of court decisions:
- As regards a decision on debts collection, can you estimate the average timeframe to notify the decision to the parties which live in the city where the court seats::
- between 1 and 5 days;
- between 6 and 10 days
- between 11and 30 days;
- more;
6) Legal and judicial reforms:
- describe the main activities of legal and or judicial reform in your country which contributes to the improvement of the quality and efficiency of your judicial system
Based mainly on a selection of replies provided by national correspondents in the framework of the CEPEJ’s main evaluation cycle the CEPEJ experts evaluate the efficiency of the judicial system, determine its strengths and weaknesses, submit recommendations contained in the individual findings and reports.
- The Lisbon Network
The Lisbon Network was set up in 1995 as part of the legal co-operation programmes in order to enable the different judicial training bodies in Europe to become better acquainted with each other, exchange information on matters of common interest and to support, by means of this dialogue, the setting up or further development of judicial training facilities in the new democracies of central and eastern Europe.
Since January 2011, a new impulse has been given to the Lisbon Network and its activities have been integrated to those of the CEPEJ.
The mission of the Lisbon Network
The mission of the Lisbon Network lies within the fulfilment of the goals of the Council of Europe, i.e. in particular the independence and efficiency of justice, which are a key factor in a State that guarantees Human Rights and founds its institutions on the Rule of Law.
The judicial training schools are key tools to promote and safeguard independency, efficiency and quality of judicial systems. As a CEPEJ consultative body, the Network's missions are in particular:
- to complement the work of the CEPEJ by advising the members on questions related to the efficiency and quality of justice through judicial training;
- to advise the CEPEJ on the issues regarding judicial training within the framework of its process for evaluating European judicial systems and carry out in-depth analysis of the relevant information resulting from this process;
- to support and disseminate the work of the CEPEJ (in particular on judicial time management, quality of justice, mediation, execution of court decisions) among new (initial training) and experienced (in-service training) judges and prosecutors; comes to court management issues);
- to trial within judicial training institutions the relevant CEPEJ's tools and guidance;
- to encourage dialogue between national and European judicial bodies, amongst institutions responsible for judicial training and amongst judges and prosecutors;
- to help training institutions in drafting entry-level tests (in particular when it comes to court management issues);
- to help in drafting specific curricula and training methodologies on the efficiency and quality of justice, management skills, etc;
- to elaborate a system for the evaluation of the training on international legal instruments;
- to provide guidelines to legal research;
- to help training institutions to implement the “Minimum Corpus of Council of Europe standards” and the “Concept paper on the training of judges and prosecutors on cybercrime”.
Network of Pilot courts of the CEPEJ
Role of the Network
The CEPEJ set up a Network of Pilot-courts from European States to:
- support its activities through a better understanding of the day to day functioning of courts and
- to highlight best practices which could be presented to policy makers in European States in order to improve the efficiency of judicial systems.
The Network is:
- forum of information: Pilot courts are privileged addressees of the information on the work and achievements of the CEPEJ and are invited to disseminate this information within their national networks. Within the Network, Pilot courts communicate and cooperate.
- a forum of reflection: the Network is consulted on the various issues addressed by the CEPEJ.
- a forum of implementation: some Pilot courts can be proposed to trial at local level some specific measures proposed by the CEPEJ.
Tasks of the Pilot-courts
The Network is involved in the implementation of the CEPEJ Framework Programme “A new objective for judicial systems: the processing of each case within an optimum and foreseeable timeframe”.
The CEPEJ relies on the Network to promote innovative time-reduction and time-management projects introduced by courts and also to promote quality of justice.
During its 3rd plenary meeting (Strasbourg, 10 September 2009), the network has adopted operational conclusions in order to support the implementation of the CEPEJ activities program.
Criteria for membership of the CEPEJ Network
Pilot-courts can be first instance or higher instance courts in civil, administrative or criminal matters.
They should be in a position to assume a leading role in the field of optimum and foreseeable judicial timeframes in their country. It would be desirable that the Pilot-courts have a successful experience as regards the monitoring and management of judicial timeframes.
Pilot-courts must be available to cooperate concretely and regularly with the CEPEJ and its Task Force on timeframes of procedures, in liaison with the CEPEJ member in their country.
The CEPEJ working groups:
- Working Group on evaluation of judicial systems (CEPEJ-GT-EVAL)
- Working Group on quality of justice (CEPEJ-GT-QUAL)
- Steering group of the SATURN - Centre for judicial time management
- working group on execution (CEPEJ-GT-EXE)
- Working Group on evaluation of judicial systems (CEPEJ-GT-EVAL)
One of the responsibilities of CEPEJ is the comparison of the judicial systems of Europe in order to improve the quality and efficiency of justice, as well as monitoring of the application and the recommendations of the Council of Europe. The CEPEJ publishes every two years a report on European judicial systems and is also responsible for managing this process.
The statute of the CEPEJ emphasizes the comparison of judicial systems and the exchange of knowledge on their functioning. The scope of this comparison is broader than ‘just’ efficiency in a narrow sense: it also emphasizes the quality and the effectiveness of justice.
To accomplish these tasks, CEPEJ conducts regular evaluation process of the judicial systems of the Council of Europe member states
The Working Group on the evaluation of judicial systems (CEPEJ-GT-EVAL) is in charge of the management of this process.
To facilitate the process of collecting and processing judicial data, an online electronic version of the Scheme has been created. Each national correspondent can thus accede to a secured webpage to register and to submit the relevant replies to the Secretariat of the CEPEJ.
Report version 2012 is based on 2010 data. The report was released on September 20, 2012 in Vienna (Austria) during the Conference of Minister of Justice.
The national responses also include a description and explanation of legal systems, which significantly promotes understanding of the data. So they are a useful supplement to the report, although in connection with necessity of short and consistent presentation it was not possible to include all of this information in the present report. Thus, the valid database on judicial systems of member states of the Council of Europe is easily accessible to all citizens, politicians, lawyers, academics and researchers.
At the same time, there is a possibility for any member state to upgrade the key data. As in the previous cycle and the information contained in the report, CEPEJ would complete this stage of study of the variety of judicial systems with the depth analysis of some topics.
Working Group on quality of justice (GT-QUAL)
To be effective judiciary Working Group on quality of justice has been mandated to develop tools to analyze and evaluate the work done by the courts in order to improve public services provided through the justice system in Council of Europe member states.
The Working Group on quality of justice (CEPEJ-GT-QUAL) is instructed to develop means of analyse and evaluation of the work done inside the courts with a view to improving, in the member states, quality of the public service delivered by the justice system, in particular vis-à-vis the expectations of the justice practitioners and the users, according to criteria of performance and efficiency meeting a large consensus.
In order to fulfil its tasks, the CEPEJ-GT-QUAL must in particular, while observing the principle of independence of judges:
- collect necessary information on evaluation systems of the quality of judicial work existing in the member states;
- improve tools, indicators and means for measuring the quality of judicial work;
- draft concrete solutions for the policy makers and for the courts, allowing to remedy dysfunctions in the judicial activity and balance the obligations of the work of judges and its workload with the obligation to provide a justice of quality for the users.
SATURN Centre for judicial time management
The CEPEJ has set up in 2007 a Centre for judicial time management (SATURN Centre - Study and Analysis of judicial Time Use Research Network). The SATURN Centre is instructed to collect information necessary for the knowledge of judicial timeframes in the member States and detailed enough to enable member states to implement policies aiming to prevent violations of the right for a fair trial within a reasonable time protected by Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Centre is aimed to become progressively a genuine European observatory of judicial timeframes, by analysing the situation of existing timeframes in the member States (timeframes per types of cases, waiting times in the proceedings, etc.), providing them knowledge and analytical tools of judicial timeframes of proceedings. It is also in charge of the promotion and assessment of the Guidelines for judicial time management.
The Centre is managed through a Steering group, which works in particular for collecting, processing and analysing the relevant information on judicial timeframes in a representative sample of courts in the member states by relying on the network of pilot courts. Thus it must define and improve measuring systems and common indicators on judicial timeframes in all member states and develop appropriate modalities and tools for collecting information through statistical analysis.
The Working Group on execution (CEPEJ-GT-EXE)
The Working Group on execution (CEPEJ-GT-EXE) is instructed to enable a better implementation of the relevant standards of the Council of Europe regarding execution of court decisions in civil, commercial and administrative matters at national level.
This group is instructed to enable a better implementation of the relevant standards of the Council of Europe regarding execution of court decisions in civil, commercial and administrative matters at national level.
In order to fulfill its tasks, the CEPEJ-GT-EXE must in particular:
- Assess the impact in the states of the existing relevant instruments of the Council of Europe on execution or court decisions at national level;
- Draft, if appropriate, guidelines aimed to ensure an effective implementation of the existing standards of the Council of Europe;
- Draft, if appropriate, quality standards on execution in order to improve the accessibility of execution systems and the efficiency of execution services.
Consultative Council of European Judges (CCJE)
The Consultative Council of European Judges is an advisory body of the Council of Europe on issues related to the independence, impartiality and competence of judges. It is the first body within an international organisation to be composed exclusively of judges, and in this respect, it is unique in Europe. By establishing the Consultative Council of European Judges, the Council of Europe highlighted the key role of the judiciary in exploring the concept of democracy and the rules by which it operates.
Consultative Council of European Prosecutors (CCPE)
The Consultative Council of European Prosecutors (CCPE), a consultative body to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, was created by decision of the Ministers’ Deputies on 13 July 2005, with the intention of institutionalising the yearly Conference of Prosecutors General of Europe (CPGE). The CPGE was launched in Strasbourg in order to ensure the follow-up of the Recommendation Rec(2000)19 on the role of public prosecution in the criminal justice system
European Conference of Prosecutors
Conference of European Prosecutors General (the CPGE) was launched in Strasbourg on the occasion of the finalisation of the Recommendation Rec (2000)19 on the role of public prosecution in the criminal justice system and has met every year until 2006.
Founded CCPE, the Committee of Ministers as well as the European Committee on Crime Problems (CDPC) recognized the importance of closely involving Public Prosecution services of its member States in its work aimed at the development of common policies and legal instruments related to their functioning and professional activities.
Given the success of the Conference of Prosecutors General of Europe CPGE, the CCPE has also been given the task to continue the organisation of conferences on topics of common concern to public prosecutors.
This institution is considered as a key tool for development rules and regulations relating to the activities of the prosecution authority.
The main powers of CCPE include:
- To instruct the European Committee on Crime Problems on conflicts in public prosecution sphere of jurisdiction in criminal matters.
- drafting opinion on issues relating to the prosecution authorities on the request of the Committee of Ministers, the European Committee on Crime or any other body of European
- gathering information on the activities of the prosecution service in Europe.
The CCPE may perform professional activities in following forms:
- Plenary meetings (main form);
- Bureau meetings;
- Working group meetings.
Plenary sessions are held on a regular basis, usually once a year.
The first meeting of the CCPE took place on 6 July 2006 in Moscow.
CEPEJ evaluation mechanisms of the Efficiency of Justice in Council of Europe member States
On 9-10 December 2010, at the 16th plenary meeting, the CEPEJ agreed to cooperate with Azerbaijan inter alia on the process for selection of candidates for judicial posts.
The following expert team was established subsequently by the CEPEJ's Bureau in order to give a follow-up to the request of the Azerbaijani authorities:
- Mr Audun Hognes BERG, the Norwegian Courts Administration, CEPEJ Bureau member;
- Ms Ivana GORANIĆ, Director of the Judicial Academy of Croatia, Member of the Lisbon Network.
Having assessed the existing selection system with the European standards pertaining to the selection of judges, the experts found that the selection system is based on objective criteria and is fairly transparent. Thus, European standards are largely met.
Targeted co-operation with member States
The CEPEJ is to provide assistance to one or more member States, at their request, including assistance in complying with the standards of the Council of Europe.
- Armenia (organization of courts);
- Bulgaria (evaluation of the judges work);
- Croatia and Slovenia (combating delays in the justice system)
- Malta and Switzerland (mediation matters);
- Netherlands (territorial jurisdiction);
- Russian Federation (execution of decisions);
- UK (restorative justice);
- Portugal (dematerialization and the use of ICT);
- United Arab Emirates (trainings);
- Montenegro (court network);
- Azerbaijan (procedures for the selection of judges).
At the request of the Member of Council of Europe and if a relevant donor is available the CEPEJ develops project designed to improve effectiveness of justice
For example, the Cooperation Programme between Croatia and the CEPEJ 'Improving the quality and efficiency of the judicial system through infrastructure development and better management" is funded by Norway Grants.
The CEPEJ experts group, with close cooperation with Croatian judicial authorities, shall:
- make a comparative analysis on the SATURN guidelines and time management tools used by Municipal and County courts and development of an action plan;
- implement this action plan in the courts and drafting a guidance manual based on the experience;
- explain the different measures in the guidance manual to the other concerned courts;
- provide technical assistance in the development of standards, norms and case weighting, and in the development of the role of judicial inspectors in monitoring Time Management of Court;
- pilot satisfaction surveys for court users and develop an action plan to guide measures to address the findings ;
In 2009, the CEPEJ experts analyzed the modernization of the judicial system of Montenegro, undertaken by the government of Montenegro.
The ministerial report planning a reform of the judicial system in Montenegro and its conclusions aiming to reduce the number of courts are particularly interesting and relevant to the work of the CEPEJ. The experts believe that such report from the Ministry of Justice of Montenegro is the right step towards adequate reforms and shall serve as a positive example for other member states to relate to.
It should be mentioned that certain essential indicators were absent from the analysis In terms of the scope of the assessment, the following issues might be considered additionally: institutional arrangements, leadership, ICT and physical resources, business processes and procedures, training, fiscal impact, accountability within the court system and its stakeholders. It would be worth considering to measure the real impact of the reform. Obviously this will not be possible before the end of 2011.
In addition, on its 23rd plenary meeting in Baku on 3 – 4 July 2014 the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ):
- welcomed the recent launching of the Joint Programme with the European Union in Albania: “Support to efficiency of justice (SEJ)” through which the CEPEJ will cooperate with all the Albanian courts;
- welcomed the forthcoming launching on a cooperation programme with the Norway Grants and Croatia to support court management through the CEPEJ tools;
- welcomed the forthcoming launching on a cooperation programme with the Swedish authorities (SIDA) and Turkey to promote mediation on the basis of the CEPEJ Guidelines and supported the possible conclusion of new cooperation programmes for judicial ethics (European Union-Council of Europe Joint Programme) and court management (SIDA) in Turkey;
- took note with satisfaction of the on-going developments for justice efficiency, on the basis of the CEPEJ evaluation, in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine within the framework of the Joint programme with the European Union for the Eastern partnership countries;
- welcomed the developments of the Council of Europe’s neighbourhood policy with Morocco, Tunisia and Jordan where the CEPEJ plays a preeminent role based on its methodology and tools;
Organisations associated with the work of the CEPEJ:
European Union
European Council
European Commission
Intergovernmental Organizations:
World Bank
The Hague Conference on private international law
International non-governmental Organisations:
- The Council of the Bars and Law Societies of the European Communities (CCBE)
- The European Association of Judges
- Magistrats européens pour la Démocratie et les Libertés (MEDEL)
- European Judicial Training Network
- Association of European administrative Judges
- The European Union of Rechtspfleger (EUR)
- International Union of Judicial Officers
- European Network of the Councils for the Judiciary (ENCJ)
- American Bar Association - Rule of Law Initiative (ABA - Rule of Law Initiative)
Other activities of the CEPEJ
- the CEPEJ set up a Network of Pilot-courts;
- the CEPEJ had prepared the programme on average length of proceedings;
- instructed and launched the European Day of Justice;
- launched the "Crystal Scales of Justice" competition.
Information prepared by:
National correspondent for the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice Council of Europe (CEPEJ) of Ukraine Polina Kazakevych
International Cooperation Division of the Secretariat of the Commission
Pickuper of the Reference and Information Material of the Division of Literary Editing and Publishing of the Secretariat of the Commission Andrii Rybka
