The European Commission has invited the ENCJ to contribute to the European Commission Rule of Law report. This project is meant to provide an annual assessment of both positive and negative significant developments concerning the Rule of Law in EU Member States. The reference period for the 2020 report is from January 2019. 

The Commission’s report relies on a diversity of sources, including the input received from Member States, country visits and stakeholders’ contribution. Besides the ENCJ, other networks such as the European Judges Association, Presidents of the Supreme Courts, ACA-Europe, MEDEL and CCBE have been invited to share their experience. 

ENCJ’s contribution (for the ENCJ contribution, click here) is amongst others based on the information collected from ENCJ Members’ replies to the questionnaire and is composed of four sections:

The first section relates to the ENCJ general statements and letters, mentioning ENCJ’s Bratislava manifesto, two letters to President Von der Leyen and Statement of the Executive Board on the situation in Poland.

The second section focuses on the ENCJ surveys which took place in 2019, introducing the aim of the ENCJ project on the Independence and Accountability of the Judiciary. This section also contains the main findings of the ENCJ survey among judges 2019 and the ENCJ-CCBE Survey among the lawyers of Europe.

The third section provides an overview of relevant developments in the ENCJ Member countries in relation to judicial Independence and is based on information provided by the Members. Starting with an overview of the history of ENCJ’s relationship with KRS (Krajowa Rada Sadownicza) which engenders uncertainty as to the KRS’s membership, it also presents collected countries’ information on the changes in the functioning of the Councils and the relations with the other State Powers.

The last section gives an overview of the status and functioning of the Councils for the Judiciary and their administrations in the EU. It is composed of four graphs representing various data. It includes the Councils resources and position, the frequency of Plenary meetings and the staff member composition.