The European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice


Strasbourg, 31 March 2010

CEPEJ-OJ(2010)Prov2

EUROPEAN COMMISSION FOR THE EFFICIENCY OF JUSTICE
(CEPEJ)

NETWORK OF PILOT COURTS

5th plenary meeting
Geneva, International Conference Centre
13 April 2010, 9 am -6 pm

AGENDA

Chairperson: John STACEY, Vice-President of the CEPEJ

    1. Welcome message

      § Lorenz MEYER, Federal Judge and President of the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland

2. Opening of the meeting

      § Philippe BOILLAT, Director General of Human Rights and Legal Affairs (DG-HL), Council of Europe

3. The activity of the CEPEJ: main achievements and priorities

    § Introduction by Stéphane LEYENBERGER and Muriel DECOT, Secretary and Co-Secretary of the CEPEJ

Reference document

    Activity Programme 2010

CEPEJ(2009)10

4. Information by the Pilot courts

The Pilot courts are invited to inform the group on any relevant change, reform or initiative
undertaken by the court (best practice, for instance) and which might be of interest for the other pilot courts.

5. Computer service for an efficient management of court

      § Rapporteurs: Daniel BRUNNER and Jacques BÜHLER, Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland

      § Webstat: a tool to conduct a court by statistics
      § Electronic communication between courts and parties in Switzerland

6. User satisfaction surveys

    Rapporteur: Jean-Paul JEAN, scientific expert of CEPEJ-GT-QUAL

      § Presentation of the draft manual: Guide and questionnaires

Reference documents

    "Conducting satisfaction surveys of court users in Council of Europe member countries"
    Guide and questionnaires : CEPEJ-GT-QUAL(2009)5Rev3

Report : CEPEJ-GT-QUAL(2010)3

7. Judicial Time Management: towards a European Observatory of judicial timeframes

    Rapporteur: Jacques BÜHLER, Chair of the Steering Group of the SATURN Centre of the CEPEJ

      § Analyse and discussion of the Pilot courts’ answers about EUGMONT four tables and two main indicators

      Scientific expert: Marco FABRI, Research Institute on Judicial Systems, Bologna (Italy)

The pilot courts were invited to send till January 2010 the four EUGMONT tables fulfilled and the two main indicators (clearance rate and disposition time) calculated. The discussion will be based on the analyse of the answers.

    § Analyse and discussion about the qualitative indicators of case flow management

      Scientific expert: Marco FABRI, Research Institute on Judicial Systems, Bologna (Italy)

    § Presentation and discussion about a representative sample of courts for each member state

    § Discussion about a draft protocol for the implementation of tools and measures proposed by the SATURN Centre

      Introduction by Jon T. Johnsen (Norway), member of the Sterring Group of the SATURN Centre

Reference documents
Analyse of the Pilot courts’ replies to EUGMONT statistical
(In preparation by Marco Fabri)

European Uniform Guidelines for Monitoring Judicial Timeframes (EUGMONT)
Data Analysis of Pilot Courts Replies
CEPEJ-SATURN(2010)4

SATURN Guidelines for judicial time management
CEPEJ(2008)8

Proposal for a representative sample of courts
CEPEJ(2010)2

Implementation test of SATURN tools in selected pilot courts
abridged report
by Jon T. Johnsen
CEPEJ-SATURN(2010)2

Pilot test of a protocol for the implementation of CEPEJ SATURN tools,
meeting wich Nedre Romerike tingrett (Norway)
by Jon T. Johnsen
CEPEJ-SATURN(2010)3

8. Discussion in clusters: does the size of a court matter?

Discussing the optimum court system always raises the question if there is a relationship between court size and court performance: Are smaller courts inefficient or delivering the court-services close to the people’s needs ? Are bigger courts serving as highly specialized units or working like inflexible dinosaurs ?

    § Introduction by Jean-Paul JEAN, Chair of CEPEJ-GT-EVAL
    § Discussion in clusters
    § Presentation of the results in plenary

9. Any other business

10. Conclusions of the meeting