June 2012

Beyond any doubt, an integral part of the reality that we observed is the general idea and fear that removals and transfers as well as disciplinary and criminal prosecution are used and abused as reactions on decisions and behavior of judges and prosecutors in their institutional work. Such a fear is a threat to the individual and institutional independence of judges and prosecutors.

It is evident that jurisdiction is often and in many ways manipulated by the executive power. It is evident likewise that sometimes defense is severely affected.

Justice has in principle three functions: The first one is conflict management, the second one is maintenance of order, the third one is limitation of political power. Apparently judiciary in Turkey is subordinated to political power and not allowed to accomplish this essential function of control and limitation.

The audit on Turkey 

Updated 07/24/2012

In the aim to audit European judicial systems, MEDEL asked its members to answer a questionnaire on the main elements of a judicial system.

The Medel audit project
The questionnaire
 
The answers :

Bucarest, June 2008
A step ahead for a (more) effective justice.

This study has been issued within the project Performance indicators - a fundamental instrument for the improvement of the quality in Romanian judicial act-, developed by the Institute for Public Policy (IPP) in partnership with the National Institute of Magistracy (NIM), financed by the European Commission through Phare 2005 - Consolidating Democracy in Romania.

The main objective of the study is to debate with specialists from the judiciary the issue of measuring the performance of the courts and prosecutor's offices in Romania, as an element that successfully completes the efforts already undertaken for improving the efficiency of the judicial act.

Palermo, february 2008

Program of the colloquium

Quality of judicial acts (by Eric Alt) : the studies on the logic of the absurd decisions allow to understand certain dysfunctions in the judicial area. This way, the routine, the deformed vision of the real thing by some of its persons in charge, the fear of being opposed to the majority opinions or the blind respect to the rules, are in the origin of the majority of the bad practices.

On the contrary, the good functioning of an organisation is the result of its capacity to put itself in question, of accepting the critiques, of developing the evaluation checking the result of the experience. All of them practices difficulty accepted by the judicial institution.

Document :

An evaluation of the quality of justice in Europe and its developments in France (Jean-Paul Jean, Hélène Pauliat).:Justice has to report on its activities and its efficiency. The European Union, the Council of Europe, and in particular the European Commission for efficiency of justice (CEPEJ), as well as each country progressively acquire appropriate measuring and evaluation tools.However, this absolutely necessary evaluation of the judicial systems should not challenge theindependence of judges in any decision they take.

Belgrade, April 2008

The intention of the Serbian politicians is to perform reelection of all the judges (opposite to Serbian Constitution, as shown in the documents submitted to MEDEL members timely) and reduce their number for 1/3 of the current number.

 There is a misunderstanding and certain amount of fear that only Serbia faces serious problems in judiciary, especially long lasting court proceedings.

According to some politicians' opinion this problem is more present in Serbia than in any other member state of Council of Europe.

Colloquium in Lübeck, 26-27 october 2007

The role of the judiciary in Germany (Hans-Ernst Boettcher) : the German judiciary has experienced many changes during the past 30 years. But the question remains whether changes have really taken place? Is this only applicable to the outward forms, or is it also true of the spirit? Does the judiciary of the Federal Republic develop slowly but steadily towards plurality and towards an internally and externally stable institution? Or is it, with all the burdens originating from its history, and in spite of its proper and even shiny appearance, a colossus with feet of clay?

Evaluation of judicial performance (Dragana Boljevic) : It Is essential for the system of judicial performance assessment, especially the system for measuring their performance, to reflect the work of judges and courts precisely, correctly and completely. The need for establishment of the judicial performance assessment system as well as the need for bringing the whole judicial system into compliance with the new Constitution point to a conclusion that further successful work in the judicial reform requires joint coordinated involvement of all – those who will design, concretise and implement further measures in the judicial reform, as well as of to whom these measures will relate.

Single judge-panel : Through the present contribution to CEPEJ, MEDEL aims to assessing the issues of division of judicial tasks among single or panel judges and of use of lay judges in judicial procedures.