Luxembourg, 17/05/2004 (Agence Europe) - The new judges at the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance have just been welcomed to the two institutions by the president of the Court. Vassilios Skouris referred to the "privileged place" for upholding the law and the support, during the successive enlargement and different legal cultures. Skouris explained that the admirable osmosis of ideas from the different legal cultures is responsible for producing their decisions. Skouris also congratulated the new judges on their levels of competency and standing. Vassilios Skouris said that he was "very satisfied" with the fact that the Council had adopted certain rules of procedure and statutes without amendments and that he hoped that the "same welcome" would be reserved for the proposals the Court would be presenting in a few weeks time (EUROPE will be returning to this issue).
The president of the Court of First Instance Bo Vesterdorf used the occasion to clarify the three main challenges facing the court: maintaining balance between "legal and social standards" so that they were in step with the whole of European society; co-ordination of work carried out by the different chambers at the Court of First Instance in a way that will ensure the coherency of case law; the processing of outstanding in an increasing number of cases by making an effort to avoid the legal system from choking. EUROPE would like to point out the names of the new judges and their main roles: Jiri Malenovsky (judge at the Czech constitutional court); Georges ARESTIS, (judge at the Supreme Court of Cyprus); Egils LEVITS from Latvia, (judge at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg); Lithuanian, Pranas Küris (judge at the European Court of Human Rights); Anthony BORG BARTHET, Attorney general in Malta; Uno LÕHMUS, (president of the Supreme court in Estonia); Endre JUHÁSZ (Hungarian minister without portfolio in charge of co-ordinating European integration affairs); Jerzy Makarczyk (advisor to the president of the Polish Republic); Slovenian Marko Ilesic (Lecturer in law and a judge) and Ján KLUCKA, judge at the Slovak constitutional court.
The Court of First Instance of the EU has nine new judges. The Slovenian judge has still not been appointed. They are as follows: Estonian, Küllike JÜRIMÄE(judge at the Court of Appeal in Tallinn); from Cyprus, Savvas . PAPASAVVAS, (lawyer); Ottó CZÚCZ, (judge at the Hungarian constitutional court); Irena Wiszniewska- Bialecka (Lecturer at the Academy of Sciences and a judge at the Supreme Administrative Court in Poland); Daniel -SVÁBY, judge at the constitutional court in Slovakia; Irena Pelikanova, Lecturer in Law and member of the Legislative Council in the Czech government; Latvian, Ingrida Labucka member of the International Court of Arbitration at The Hague; Latvian, Vilenas VADAPALAS (Lecturer in law); Ena CREMONA from Malta (lawyer).
These nineteen judges are now "operational" and the two institutions have allocates them their cases. Most of them have selected their three clerks who will be assisting them. (EUROPE will be returning to this subject).