At the General Assembly, organised online on 2 June 2021, the ENCJ adopted the following documents:
- Report on the Independence, Accountability and Quality of the Judiciary
- Report on Access to fair and impartial courts: guaranteeing access to justice in times of crisis
- ENCJ Strategy 2022-2025 and work plan 2021-2022
The project on Independence, Accountability and Quality of the Judiciary is a multiannual project. This year the project worked on improving the survey among judges questionnaire (to be held in 2022), the Court Users Survey and the Quality indicators and questionnaire. 10 dialogue group meetings where the participants discussed the outcomes of the indicators measured in 2019-2020 were also organised. The development of improvement plans to address weaknesses and to build on strengths has started and will be further developed next year.
The project on access to fair and impartial courts' main aim was to study the rules for guaranteeing access to justice (right to an effective remedy and to a fair trial as laid down in Article 47 of the EU Charter for Fundamental Rights) during a state of emergency, in order to be prepared to face other crisis. These minimum standards concerned, in particular, respect for the rule of law, guarantees of access to courts, preservation of the security of legal professional and users of the judicial system, processing and follow-up of cases and impact of use of new technologies on the judicial work. There was a specific focus on the role that the Councils for the Judiciary and the courts should play in order to preserve independence of the judiciary, during crisis but also after crisis.
The ENCJ Strategy 2022-2025 sets out the main objectives for the ENCJ for the next 4 years and identifies specific activities and the partners and stakeholders with whom these aims may be achieved.
The three main objectives are:
