Outcome 2.4.1
“Accelerated Justice System Reform, including improved judicial infrastructure and staffing as soon as possible, while maintaining a focus on service quality. This field includes ensuring the optimal functioning of the High Court and the Court against Corruption and Organized Crime.”
An expected outcome in meeting Objective 2.4 is an effective and efficient judicial system, which performs to the highest quality standards. And in this line, in compliance with the current needs of the system, which is working with a limited number of judges, an expected outcome, a prerequisite for efficiency, is the optimal functioning of the judiciary at all its levels. This, starting with the courts that have not been functional and are currently understaffed (High Court and CCOC) and up to the courts of the first two instances which are increasing vacancies with every day that passes as a result of the advancement of the vetting process.
Therefore, in this regard, in order to achieve the intended efficiency and effectiveness of Objective 2.4, the outcome of the measures to be taken should be a functional court with the necessary judicial and administrative staff, which should reflect the European standards for the ratio of staff vs. number of inhabitants, as well as operate according to the best standards of human resource management.
This outcome is a continuation of the expected outcomes from the measures envisaged under the 2019-2020 HJC Strategic Plan. In this regard, the measures to achieve it, provided in CJS II, should reflect and be coordinated with the measures that HJC will provide for achieving efficiency in the judiciary in the Strategic Plan for the coming years, which is being developed.
In terms of wording, Outcome 2.4.1 needs to be revised in its entirety. First, by clearly setting out the expected outcome and avoiding language that constitutes measures that lead to its achievement. Whereas “accelerating the Reform” is more of an objective than a result, and “improving infrastructure or staffing” are measures that result in the optimal functioning of the judicial system, both in terms of human resources and infrastructure. Also, since staffing and human resource management are intertwined processes, especially at the stage when inflows from the School of Magistrates are limited, it should be checked whether Outcomes 2.4.1 and 2.4.2 could be merged. Of course, the measures in achieving them would reflect each process.
Second, in order to be realistic, Outcome 2.4.1 needs to be further supplemented with measures related to the improvement of court infrastructure, including the measures for information technology systems (listed in Objective 4.1), as well as measures leading to staffing.
Third, the outcome needs to be adjusted in order to be more measurable and monitorable. Often, during the implementation of CJS I, ambiguities were encountered, which were reflected in the non-identification of the institution responsible for monitoring. For this reason, the outcomes should be drafted using clear and simple language, in order to be as measurable as possible during the Strategy implementation and monitoring. In this regard, an indicator for measuring the outcome of having a functioning court with sufficient staff, in the current state of the system (with a significant number of cases carried over), could be: “the average number of cases per judge in a year”, Or “the percentage of the number of solved cases in relation to new cases within a period of time”.
Conclusion: The above outcome should be reviewed in its entirety. It should be reworded in accordance with Objective 2.4, as well as the nature of an outcome (avoiding wording that is consistent with the nature of the measures or objectives). It should also be supplemented with indicators that are measurable and monitorable. In this regard, we suggest including as an indicator “the average number of cases per judge in a year”, or “the percentage of the number of solved cases in relation to new cases within a period of time”.