Outcome 1.2.1
“Judicial governance structure (HJC)/legislation revised/amended, including but not limited to internal regulations”.
In meeting Objective 1.2, analyzed above, the achievement of three main outcomes is planned, related to the review of the organizational structure of HJC, HPC and HIJ, their revised or amended legislation, and the development of all their internal regulations (HPC and HIJ will be analyzed below). Specifically, for the HJC, it is required to develop an analysis and decision-making process for at least three aspects of its functioning: first, the organizational structure of this body; secondly, the laws governing the activity of this body; and, thirdly, the internal regulations and acts of generic power issued by this body.
This outcome is in line with Objective 1.2 and constitutes a positive step towards the breakdown of this objective in practice. The outcome consists of three main components, which will have to be analyzed separately, to make it clearer how it can be achieved, i.e., what measures should be taken in order to fully meet the requirements of this outcome.
While these three components can be identified, the outcome does not contain the aim of analyzing these three components, which is what the objective and goal of the policy expresses: these bodies’ compliance with European standards by acting with professionalism, efficiency, transparency and accountability. In conclusion, any review of the structure, law or internal rules, should aim to meet these principles, so the desired outcome should be a structure and legal basis that provides the HJC with the conditions to act professionally, with efficiency, transparency, etc. Although these principles are contained in Objective 1.2, they should have been explicitly set out in each outcome.
Seen in this light, i.e., to what extent will the analysis of these components produce harmonization and progress towards the established principles, the success of this outcome is debatable.
Theoretically, the HJC is able to self-analyze its structure, the law that regulates its activity and also the regulatory acts it has developed so far. In practical terms, given the progress of the activity of this body, with its first meeting held on December 20, 2018, the long time it took to draft important internal documents, approximately a year or more[1], etc., there is the risk that this control by the HJC be more formal rather than substantial, because these new acts have not matured and have not been tested for a long time in practice, so they have not had the opportunity to produce sufficient results. As a rule, any subsequent analysis, ex post, of laws or regulations, requires a period of implementation of the law or regulation, and then the implementation monitoring process can begin and, eventually the analysis of this implementation can be done – after which concrete outcomes will emerge, otherwise there is a need for change[2].
Conclusion: The projected outcome is in line with the objective; however, it is debatable whether it will benefit Policy 1. This is because, both the review of the law regulating the HJC and the review of bylaws issued by this body, although likely to be achieved, the analysis they will produce will be substandard. This is directly related to the insufficient time to produce a complete analysis on the problems that may have been caused by the law or bylaws in the functioning of this body as one of the bodies of the justice system.
[1]HJC Decision no. 264, of 21.11.2019, “Scoring methodology in order to determine the level of evaluation of the judge”; HJC Decision no. 209, dated 11.10.2019, “Methodology for the evaluation and scoring of non-judicial candidates for the High Court”; HJC Decision no. 316, dated 14.09.2020, “On the approval of the regulation “On disciplinary procedures in the High Judicial Council”; HJC Decision no. 622, dated 10.12.2020, “On parallel transfers, promotion and admission to the civil judicial service”; HJC Decision no. 171, dated 22.04.2021, “On the approval of the Code of Judicial Ethics”, etc.
[2] OECD (2018), Ex-post assessment of regulation: Practices and lessons from OECD countries, OECD Publishing, Paris, pp. 11;