On July 01, 2021, the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice of the Council of Europe (CEPEJ) published a number of important documents in the field of justice, adopted during the 36th online plenary meeting in June this year.
Given the epidemiological situation in the field of health care and the active use of videoconferencing in the administration of justice in the member States of the Council of Europe, the CEPEJ has developed Guidelines on videoconferencing in judicial proceedings. This document covers procedural, organizational and technical aspects of online court hearings and aims to promote the right to a fair trial in respect of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and the provisions of the Convention for the Protection of Individuals concerning Automatic Processing of Personal Data.
In this context, the state and the court should provide a number of important conditions for online court hearings, including effective technical support during hearings, the right of the parties to privacy, the application to witnesses and experts of the same questioning practices and guarantees as in person questioning, public nature of the hearings and public participation (unless otherwise ruled by the court), availability of an interpreter (if necessary), proper instructing of the parties regarding the procedure of presenting materials and evidence during the videoconference.
In order to improve the procedures in the field of judicial management, CEPEJ adopted the Handbook on court dashboards. The document is an applied tool in the creation of panels of indicators reflecting quantitative data on the work of the court and is designed to promote quality analysis and control performance in the courts. The handbook provides practical guidance on the design and visualization of comprehensive information panels with key performance indicators at both the judge's and the whole court's level.
With a view to guarantee democracy and confidence of court users in the judicial process, the CEPEJ has also developed a document “For a better integration of the user in the judicial systems: Guidelines and comparative studies on the centrality of the user in legal proceedings in civil matters and on the simplification and clarification of language with users".
Therefore, court decisions must be clear to the user of court services. States should also take specific measures to assist litigants (or their representatives, if appropriate) in their interaction with the courts by electronic means of communication. According to the document, the main focus should be on ensuring the Rule of Law and maintaining the confidence of participants in the judiciary regardless of the outcome of the proceedings, as confidence is an important component of all democratic societies.
In addition, after having developed the toolkit for the development of mediation for judges, notaries and lawyers, the CEPEJ adopted a Mediation Awareness and Training Programme for Enforcement Agents.
All CEPEJ documents in the field of justice developed last year can be found in the 2020 Activity Report.
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The European Commission on the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) was established on 18 September 2002 in accordance with Resolution (2002) 12 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. The CEPEJ is made up of 47 member states of the Council of Europe. The purpose of CEPEJ's work is to increase the efficiency of justice bodies in the context of implementing CoE standards and recommendations. It is the initiator of numerous studies in this area, in particular, of a comparative nature. It prepares draft recommendations aimed at identifying opportunities and promoting the use of a variety of tools to combine the two key principles of justice: equity and efficiency.