43rd Plenary Meeting of CEPEJ was held on 3-4 December 2024 at the premises of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg (France). Ms Hilal Tuğçe Kılıç, Rapporteur Judge of the Foreign Relations and Projects Bureau, attended the meeting on behalf of the Council of Judges and Prosecutors (CJP).
During the Plenary, elections were held for determination of President, Vice President and Bureau Members. As a result of the elections, after their 2 year-term, President Mr Francesco Depasquale (Malta), Vice-President Mr Ivan Crncec (Croatia) and Bureau Members Mrs Sonya Djemni Wagner (France) and Dr. Seçkin Koçer (Türkiye) were unanimously re-elected for the same duties.
Within the scope of predetermined agenda, the Plenary started with a workshop session on the ethical and practical framework of use of AI in the judiciary which was moderated by Marek Świerczyński (Poland), Professor of Law, member of the CEPEJ Artificial Intelligence Advisory Board (AIAB). This was followed by the presentations of significant developments and legal amendments that took place in the judiciaries of member and observer countries of the Commission since the previous meeting. Then, the Plenary continued with informing the participants about the ongoing and completed works of GT-EVAL (Evaluation of judicial systems), GT-QUAL (Quality of Justice), GT-CYBERJUST (Cyberjustice and artificial intelligence) and SATURN (Judicial time management) that are CEPEJ Working Groups.
Within this framework, the relevant working groups submitted the following draft documents for consideration: “Guidelines on evaluation of the quality of the work of judges”, “Time Management Checklist for public prosecution services” and “Explanatory Note for the Time Management Checklist for public prosecution services”, “Guidelines for the online publication of court decisions and access to legal knowledge”, “CEPEJ Cyberjustice and AI glossary”.
In addition to these, the Plenary included the general evaluation of the latest 2024 version of the Report (published on 16/10/2024 based on 2022 data) that is published every two year under the title of “European Judicial Systems - CEPEJ Evaluation Report” and evaluates the judicial systems of member countries of the Council of Europe, including our country, from certain aspects and through comparative analysis of statistical data. Finally, the ongoing reflections on the creation of new efficiency and quality indicators for the 2026 cycle were brought up for discussion.