The European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) was founded in 2002 with the decision of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. The aim of the CEPEJ is to enhance the efficiency and functioning of the judiciary in member states and to improve the implementation of the systems prepared by the Council of Europe with this purpose.
The CEPEJ is focused on improving the rule of law and democracy in Europe. It was founded with the purpose of presenting recommendations to the 47 member states of the Council of Europe, concerning the implementations on the structuring of the judiciary, taking all the judicial processes into consideration; and finding new effective ways to provide fair trial within a reasonable time.
The second Article of the Bylaw attached to the Decision No. 2002/12 lists the duties of the CEPEJ as follows:
- Revising different conclusions reached by different judicial systems, via using general statistical criteria and means of evaluation,
- Identifying the problems related to the functions and the possible progresses of the judicial systems, and exchanging opinions on these matters,
- Determining tangible methods for the evaluation of the member states’ judicial systems and the enhancement of their functions, taking the member states’ special needs into consideration,
- Providing assistance to the member states, upon request, in compliance with the standards of the Council of Europe,
- Preparing draft proposals to present to the Committee of Ministers, concerning the composition of new international legal documents or the amendment of the existing ones, when required and when considered necessary by the administrative committees (especially the European Committee on Legal Cooperation) of the Council of Europe.
A communicative network including the member states was formed by CEPEJ in order for all the work to be carried out. The contact information specified by the member states are sent to the CEPEJ Secretariat via the network that CEPEJ has established.