The Council of Bars and Law Societies (the CCBE) on Wednesday 20 May called on the European institutions and Member States to facilitate the full reactivation of the judicial systems in the EU, which have been paralysed due to the containment measures taken to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The Judiciary must be reactivated immediately in phase I of every deconfinement strategy, to the greatest extent possible, to allow citizens and entities regain full access to Justice and to legal certainty”, the organization wrote in a statement.
The CCBE also calls on Member States to invest urgently in justice and legal aid. As a result of the cancellation and postponement of cases, the judicial system will be faced with a considerable backlog, which will have a further negative impact on legal certainty, the CCBE points out.
The organisation also calls for specific financial support for lawyers and tax relief measures for independent lawyers or small firms that have suffered greatly from the containment measures due to a lack of new business or non-payment of bills by their clients, for example.
Initial surveys indicate that around 25% of lawyers in Europe are strongly affected by the current situation. An increase in legal aid funding and the temporary possibility of advance payments to legal aid lawyers could help them survive the crisis, according to the CCBE.
See the statement: https://bit.ly/3cNoRBx (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)