ENCJ Project on Standards and Evaluation 2010-2011

In 2010-2011 the ENCJ worked on the theme of Standards and Evaluation. The project falls within the scope of the Strategic Objective that aims to promote best practices in the Justice Sector for Quality Management. The report puts forward proposals for minimum standards in the areas of recruitment, selection and appointment of judges; judicial training and judicial ethics. The questionniare report is the collection of answers received from the ENCJ Members to the questionniare that was drafted by the project team.

The idea for the project comes from the Mutual Confidence report 2009-2010. The principle of Mutual Recognition has as a pre-condition that there be mutual confidence among judges. Mutual Confidence calls for better cooperation and more (minimum) standards, more common legislation on basic issues and a common understanding of conditions. 

Where as politicians have shown to be reluctant to develop minimum standards, the Judiciaries of Europe should understand and accept their role and responsibility in developing minimum standards. A set of representative standards for the Justice Sector should be developed. The Judiciaries of Europe should also be prepared to take the next step for evaluating compliance with these minimum standards. These common minimum standards and their evaluation will contribute to mutual confidence. Councils for the Judiciary through the ENCJ should take the lead (when appropriate in cooperation with others).

"Mutual confidence: towards a European judicial culture"

In 2009-2010 the working group on Mutual Confidence continued the work done in the previous year on training and evaluation. The Mutual Confidence report and recommendations 2009-2010 focuses in detail on the topic of evaluation and the responsibility of the European Judiciary to develop a set of representative minimum standards for the Justice Sector. The report also calls for a European attitude of Judges.

The issue of training of Judges in European Law is discussed in detail and best practices on the dissemination of EU knowledge on a national level are provided in the report. Finally, on a European level, the report calls for the development of judicial networks that focus on improving mutual understanding of specialist issues and problems by sharing and exchaniging experiences. 

“Strengthening Mutual Confidence: training and evaluation”

In 2008-2009 the group held two meetings. In the ENCJ report on Mutual Confidence 2008-2009 they came to the following conclusions:

•  to conduct further work in relation to issues on the evaluation of the rule of law in the European Union;
•  to be particularly present and active in the European debate on the issues of judicial training;
•  to promote the Dutch model of the “Court Coordinator for European Law” which already proved its efficiency in the Netherlands;
• that the ENCJ continues its work on the “Mutual Confidence”, but giving the priority to training and evaluation. 

“Mutual Confidence is in the heart of the development of the Europe of Justice”

The main conclusions in the report of the Mutual Confidence working group 2007-2008, coordinated by the President of the ENCJ, were in the area of the development of relations with the EU institutions especially the Justice forum.

The proposals of the Working Group included that the ENCJ should:

1. Actively participate in the Justice Forum of the Euroepan Commission.
2. Designate its president to represent it there on a permanent basis.
3. Take the necessary initiatives to be part of the small permanent group which eventually could be created.
4. Formulate concrete proposals in order to become a “motor” of this Forum.
5. Propose to the Forum to approach the following themes:

• the problem of backlog in the judicial decisions
• the liability of judges
• the question of direct information of judge on the decisions of a judge from another country on similar cases
• the question of diversity in the judiciary (ethnic, gender, …)
• the self government for the judiciary.

"Strengthening Mutual Confidence: a first exploration"

 The topic of strengthening Mutual Confidence was taken up for the first time in 2006-2007 by a working group coordinated by the Irish Courts' Service. The Mutual Confidence report 2006-2007 that the group drafted contains a clarification of the meaning of the term 'mutual confidence', it considers the reality of mutual confidence from the point of view of the judicial decision maker and finally it considers methods of assisting the development of mutual confidence amongst the judiciary of the European Union