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Activities survey 2009

  1. Development of the website

    The site provides access to:

    • the section "events" that gives an overview of the latest events of the association;
    • a "Tour of Europe" that gives an overview of the administrative justice in each member State of the Union. For each Member State, this overview sums up the situation on 76 themes regarding administrative justice;
    • reports from all 21 previous colloquiums (around 13,000 pages);
    • the bulletin Reflets;
    • a guide to preliminary ruling proceedings before the ECJ with direct links to the relevant case law;
    • the sites of nearly all the member institutions;
    • the information network (see below).

    2. The website is updated regularly. Regular action was taken in 2009 to raise awareness of the opportunities for information offered by the site, particularly the databases.

  2. Information network

    • DEC-NAT databank

      • The documentation department at the Court of Justice of the European Communities holds files on around 20,000 national decisions. Pursuant to an agreement between the Court of Justice and the Association, these data were transmitted to the Association, which compiled them in a searchable databank. The DEC-NAT databank can be accessed free of charge via the Association's website.

      The following information is given for each decision listed in DEC-NAT:

      • national references: names of parties, national provisions applied and relevant articles of doctrine;
      • international or European references, Community provisions applied (if any);
      • an analysis of the decision: keywords, i.e. a summary of the purpose of the decision;
      • in some cases, a fourth section with the preliminary ruling of the Court of Justice.

      DEC-NAT data is updated and translated into English. The 2007 updates were translated in 2008 and the 2008 updates were translated in 2009.

      The databases are overseen by a Support Committee, which is also responsible for suggesting any useful improvements.

      The ECJ Documentation Service and the Office for Official Publications have both acknowledged the high quality of the DEC-NAT database. An agreement was concluded with the ECJ and the Office for Official Publications to allow DEC-NAT data to be consulted via the large EUR-LEX database.

      Furthermore, there is a study in progress with a view to establish a connection between the data of DEC-NAT and all national databases and vice versa. The project was continued in 2009.

    • JURIFAST rapid information system for case law

      • Using a login and password, the documentation and research departments of the member courts can upload recent and unpublished decisions to the JURIFAST system. JURIFAST is accessible to the public (in French and English) via the Association's website and provides the following information:

      • the date of the decision and a summary;
      • the full text of the decision in the original language;
      • a reference to the provision(s) of Community law applied, with a link to said provision(s) in all of the EU languages;
      • a summary of the decision;
      • in some cases, a direct link to the preliminary ruling of the Court of Justice in all the EU languages;
      • in some cases, a direct link to the ruling of the national court following the preliminary ruling of the Court of Justice.

    The JURIFAST system has been operational since 1 February 2004.

    As at 31 December 2009, 734 decisions had been entered into the system.

    In 2009, JURIFAST continued to be overseen and translated by the General Secretariat.

    • Non-public network

      • A forum is up and running. The aim of the forum is to allow all magistrates and members of research and documentation departments to exchange information and ask questions. The system was set up at the beginning of 2005.

      As at 31 December 2009, 231 members had registered in the forum and had posted 418 messages on 143 discussion topics.

      The General Secretariat continued leading the forum in 2009.

  3. Publications

    • Newsletter

      • The Newsletter is published on paper and electronically on the Association's website.

      Twenty newsletters have been published since 2002.

      In 2009, two newsletters were published.

      The newsletter nr 21 was devoted to the seminar held in Athens on 15 and 16 May 2009. The theme of newsletter nr 22 was the seminar of Istanbul on 1 and 2 October 2009.

      We are also examining the possibility of cooperation between the ECJ's documentation service, the Publications Office and the association so as to produce French and English versions of the review "Reflets" offering a recent survey of national and international case law, new national legislation and a few articles of doctrine.

    • Vade mecum

      • This brochure, available in both French and English, provides a summary of the Association's composition, background and activities.

      The new vade mecum has been published in 2009.

    • Documentation on the Warsaw Colloquium

      • The 21st colloquium of the association was held in Warsaw from 16 till 18 June 2008. It was dedicated to the influence of the Community law on administrative case law. Specifically, the idea was to look at the effects of incompatibility of administrative decisions and final rulings at the national level with EU legislation. The colloquium brought together delegations from all the member institutions, the ECJ and the European Commission.

      Documentation relating to the Warsaw colloquium has been made available in French, English and Polish. This includes an introduction, the questionnaire, the general report, the final report and the national reports on CD.

  4. Seminars

    5. The Association organises meetings for a small number of participants on more specific topics.

    Three seminars were held in 2009:

    • Seminar on administrative jurisdiction and "e-justice" (Athens, 15-16 May 2009).

      • In cooperation with the Council of State of Greece, the German Federal Administrative Court headed up this seminar about the possibility of submitting and managing legal files electronically. Ms Cornelie Butz was in charge of the scientific dimension.

    • Seminar "Update of the Tour of Europe and e-Justice" (Istanbul, 1-2 October 2009).

      This seminar was organised in cooperation with the Council of State of Turkey. The seminar had the following goals :
      - the updating of one of the most interesting items of the association's site, the "Tour of Europe";
      - the follow up of the seminar "e-Justice" held in Athens; the Council of State of Turkey presented his system of information and communication technology applied to administrative justice, which is one of the most advanced systems in Europe;
      - the contribution the association could have to the European e-Justice Portal the European Commission wants to promote.

    • Seminar on judges assessment (Brussels, 30 November 2009).

      The Belgian Council of State took care of this seminar on judges assessment. The seminar was organised on 30 november 2009. The Network of the Presidents of the Supreme Judicial Courts and the Network of Councils for the Judiciary also took part in this event.

  5. Admission of new members and new observers

    6. The Association wishes in accordance to its statutes, to welcome as observers the corresponding institutions of countries which have started membership negotiations with the European Union. They will become members automatically as soon as their state joins the European Union.

    The Association considers it a priority to offer the 2 new member States (the Supreme Administrative Court of Bulgaria and the High Court of Cassation and Justice and the Legislative Council of Romania) and observers (the Administrative Court of Croatia and the Council of State of Turkey) the best assistance possible in getting to know the European legal system.

    In 2009, the new members and observers were invited to participate actively in all the Association's activities and the Association tried to promote and coordinate bilateral contacts with old members.

    So, in association with the Council of State of France and the University of Paris II, the association presented its information network to the croatian administrative judges in Split (25 October 2009 ).

    In collaboration with the European Association of administrative judges, the association welcomed 4 supplementary judges of the supreme administrative Court of Bulgaria in the seminar about the judge’s assessment and explained its data banks (Brussels on 30 November and 2 December 2009).

  6. Contact with European authorities and other European networks

    7. The Association maintains regular contact with the Court of Justice (a founding member of the Association), the Parliament (and in particular the Committee on Citizens' Rights, Justice and Home Affairs), the Council and the Commission (above all with the Commissioner for the Area of Justice, Freedom and Security, the Legal Service and the DG JFS and Environment). These contacts were continued in 2009.

    With regard to the Commission’s directorate-general Justice, Freedom and Security , the association participated in the meetings of the Justice Forum, in particular on 15 March 2009 (Subgroup E-Justice) and on 16 October 2009 (Justice and economic crisis). With regard to the directorate-general Environment, the association works in the Support Committee of the training program for judges on the specific aera of the environment (Brussels, on 13 February 2009 and Luxembourg on 27 February 2009).

    Regarding the E.U. Council, the association participates actively in the meetings of the Working Party on Legal Data Processing (e-Law) (Brussels on 17 April and 21 October 2009).

    The association has set up a workgroup on the reform of the preliminary procedure at the ECJ, in which the Network of the Presidents of the Supreme Judicial Courts of the European Union took part. As a result of the conclusions of this workgroup, the Court of Justice organised a symposium in Luxembourg on 30-31 March 2009. A large number of presidents of the national courts participated at this conference.

    The Association is collaborating, among other, with the Network of the Presidents of the Supreme Judicial Courts of the European Union and the European Network of the Councils of Justice.

    The first of these networks is involved with the Jurifast database and is invited to participate in the Association’s seminars and working groups. The second one was invited to take part in the board meeting held in Brussels on 29 November 2009.

     

 
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