Brussels, 24/07/2008 (Agence Europe) - Speaking on Tuesday 22 July at the closing of a European seminar on justice, French Justice Minister Rachida Dati called for EU states to develop “national training in EU law”. “A Europe of Justice is based on one essential principle: mutual trust. This cannot be decreed, it must be acquired”, the justice minister said, adding that this is what training at European level should aim for.
No European justice without training. Saying that magistrates do not have sufficient knowledge of Europe, the French EU Council Presidency has decided to make judicial cooperation one of the priorities of its term of office. Justice ministers and judicial personnel from the 27 EU member states met for two days at the Ecole nationale de la magistrature de Bordeaux to discuss the theme: “What future for the training of magistrates and judicial personnel in the European Union?”. They came to one definite conclusion: European states must develop training in EU law. “European training is an essential condition if Europe of Justice is to be effective”, Ms Dati pointed out in her speech. Jacques Barrot, Justice Commissioner, said: “For judicial decisions to be implemented rapidly in the European Union, there must be mutual recognition between member states but this is far from obvious today”. Indeed, “this presupposes great trust between the judiciary systems of the various member states. But a knowledge of them is needed before all else”, stressed Luc Frieden, Luxembourg Justice Minister. “At present, European states do not devote enough means to the training of judges. We must head towards training”, Mr Barrot put in. “Our lawyers, our judges now need to master another foreign language”, said Diana Wallis (ALDE, UK), who, according to Ms Dati, is the “excellent” author of a report to Parliament on 9 June this year (EUROPE 9702).
Developing European training of magistrates. “If we want citizens to have trust in Europe, then we need a justice system that works (…). The profession of magistrate can no longer be practised or contained within a strictly national framework”, Rachida Dati said. She backed up her stance by speaking of the “revolution” of bringing the European arrest warrant into criminal law. “This is a real mechanism for assimilating foreign decisions into national decisions”, she explained. On the subject of civil justice, she spoke of the 2003 “Brussels II a” regulation” which introduced the principle of mutual recognition of justice decisions in the field of family law. “Here too, the judge may have to take foreign legislation into account in the dossier”, she stressed. France, with ten other member states, has therefore submitted a resolution for developing national training in EU law and in foreign languages. Ms Dati pointed out that attempts have already been made at national level concerning initial and continuous training of magistrates in EU law, as well as training centred on specific aspects of Community law (family, business law, etc.). “These national efforts must be kept up”, she said, also calling for this to be taken further by developing real European training course units. As an experimental measure, France, together with the Netherlands, Germany, Poland and Spain, will be conducting a joint European training course for magistrates on terrorism. Such training will be extended to clerks of the court and the law professions. Those taking part at the conference also placed emphasis on the creation of a real European judicial culture thanks to the development of European training structures such as the European Judicial Training Network (EJTN) and the Academy of European Law (ERA) in Germany. Mr Barrot called upon the different European training structures to work together and not each in its own corner. If the training of judges appears essential, those on the panel also considered that of lawyers a “must”, in so far as they are the ones who push the national judge to carry out the necessary research from the EU law point of views. A number of comments were also made to the European Commission about the complexity of procedures for allowing magistrates to receive training in other member states. Mr Barrot promised he would look into the matter. Czech Deputy Justice Minister Tomas Bocek, whose country is to take over from France at the presidency of the Union in January, said that his country would continue with the “French initiative” on a Europe of Justice.
Prospect of European Law School. In order to improve the knowledge of future magistrates on the laws in force in Europe, Luc Frieden suggested bringing in European law into their study curriculum and an “annual update” of two or three days on European law for practising judges. He goes still further by proposing to create, in the long term, a European Law School. In his opinion, it would be necessary to begin with multinational short term (2-3 week) European classes. There were no objections to this proposal. (B.C./transl.jl)