Judicial Case Management – Ensuring greater court efficiency and accountability
Effective case management not only ensures the efficiency and transparency of the judicial system, but also enables access to justice and upholds the right to a fair trial. Case management entails the availability of systems, sufficient staff and members of the judiciary to process cases, as well as measuring their efficiency and effectiveness. This online course will cover these issues through a number of themes, including the role of the judge, evaluating judicial performance, achieving greater court efficiency through case management, and the use of technology. These topics are at the forefront of debates among the judiciary across Central and Eastern Europe and beyond.
The main target audience is judges from our Judicial Network in Central and Eastern Europe, together with prosecutors, court personnel, academics, NGOs, CSOs and others. However, the subject matter may also appeal to judges in other regions.
Participants can register HERE.
All applications are reviewed and subject to approval.
This 5-week course from the CEELI Institute will use CEELI Online, our dedicated learning platform, to facilitate an effective learning environment that provides the opportunities for members of the judiciary and faculty to connect, engage and share knowledge. The training is comprised of a structured program of study with a number of online modules (both live and recorded) featuring a weekly release of materials. Each week comprises of 2.5 hours of materials including reports, recorded interviews, and discussion forums with a live 1-hour webinar panel each Tuesday at 18.00 CET. The course will be conducted in English. This course has been designed with the needs of our judges in mind and for the CEE context, but many of these challenges are universal and will resonate with members of the judiciary in other jurisdictions.
We feature inputs from international and regional judges, academics, and members of the justice sector and court community together with subject matter experts from European Institutions. Our stellar faculty line-up includes:
• Judge Andrea Moravcikova, Vice President of Supreme Court of Slovakia
• Judge David Campbell, U.S. District Court of the District of Arizona, United States
• Mr Duro Sessa, President of European Association of Judges, Deputy President of Consultative Council of European Judges (CCJE), Croatia
• Mr Georg Stawa, Judicial Counsellor for Southeast Europe and former President of CEPEJ, Austria
• Judge Giacomo Oberto, First Instance Court of Torino (Civil Court), President of CEPEJ-SATURN, Italy
• Dr Grzegorz Borkowski, International Legal Expert, former Head of Office of the National Council of the Polish Judiciary and HELP Consultative Board, Poland
• Mr Ivan Crnčec, Justice Sector Reform Expert, Member of CEPEJ-SATURN, Croatia
• Judge Jan Sikuta, President of Supreme Court of Slovakia
• Mr Jaša Vrabec, Office for Court Management Development, Head of the Office Supreme Court of the Republic of Slovenia
• Mr Jeffrey Apperson, Vice President for International Affairs at the National Center for State Courts, United States
• Judge John Tunheim, U.S. District Court of the District of Minnesota, United States
• Dr. Marco Fabri, Research Director of the National Research Council of Italy
• Judge Martina Marsić, Basic Court in Rijeka, Croatia
• Ms. Martina Vrdoljak, Municipal Court in Rijeka, Croatia
• Justice Mirjana Trajkovska Lazarevska, Justice of the Supreme Court of North Macedonia, Former ECtHR Judge for North Macedonia
• Judge Sabine Matejka, President of Austrian Association of Judges
Module 1 – The Role of the Judge in Case management
• Underpinning principles of fair trial, reasonable time, transparency and efficiency, confidentiality and security
• Adjusting the process to fit the size and needs of the case
• Setting and maintaining firm trial dates
• Impartiality of the judge in cases assigned by the Automatic Court Case Management System.
• European recommendations for judicial case management
Module 2 – Using Case Management to Increase Court Efficiency
• Relevant standards for duration of cases (international and national) and time-frames for key steps in the case
• Measuring incoming cases and pending cases
• Clearance rates
• Time frames: policies, standards and tools for measuring
• Prioritisation and dealing with backlogs
• Use of mediation and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) to reduce backlogs
• Maintaining deadlines (summons or case documents not sent out on time, insufficient time allocated to a hearing)
• Performance measurement
• Strategies and recommendations to strengthen judicial case management
• Standardization of judicial proceedings through unification of terminology, ciphers, electronic forms, certificates, correspondence, decisions and other documents, as well as the methodology of data entry and case movement protocols.
Module 3 – Evaluating Individual Judicial Performance
• Assessing individual judicial performance and ‘effectiveness’
• Measuring incoming cases and pending cases
• Clearance rates
• The use of quotas to measure performance and how this measurement impacts of the quality of justice provided
• Relevant standards for duration of cases (international and national) and time-frames for key steps in the case
• Objective case allocation, potential risks, undermining judicial independence, government interference
• Monitoring fair, transparent and efficient workloads
• Procedural flexibility needed by case managing judges
• Delegation of case management tasks to court staff, availability of sufficiently trained staff
• Prioritisation and dealing with backlogs, potential use of mediation and ADR
Module 4 – Role of Technology / Information and Communications Technologies (ICT)
• Tools for case management and for monitoring of cases and productivity
• Hybrid systems of hard and soft materials
• Digitalisation of Justice and e-CODEX
• Complexity of databases and extent to which they are integrated with other systems
• Issues of confidentiality and security
• Data collection
• Integrated Case Record Management
• E-Filling and Registration.
• Reporting and Analytics in receiving feedback.
• Status and problems in the use of ICT in the judiciary.
Module 5 – Contemporary Issues