ATTENTION TO QUALITATIVE ASPECTS OF WORK OF COURTS
SHOULD BE PAID IN DISCUSSION ON EFFICIENCY OF JUDICIARY
Allocution of Ivars BICKOVICS, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court at the
conference of Advocates’ Days “Effectivisation of court processes”
The 21st of March, 2013
At present, judiciary is placed in limelight of society, and statements about inefficient
court processes and problems arising from those do not settle. Unfortunately, judges are
often mentioned as main perpetrators in this situation, and reproaches are expressed that
we update problems of efficiency of courts not sufficiently and look for solutions of
those with insufficient activeness. I will take the liberty to declare the contrary – we see
these problems very well, as it is our weekday.
A month ago, at the Plenary Session of the Supreme Court, when analysing work
performed previous year, number of traditional statistical reports was less, but reports of
Chairs of departments and chambers stressed just the same problem – how to make
court proceedings more efficient. Moreover, by this efficiency one should mean not
only speed of adjudication, but also quality and effectiveness. As principal problems,
which delay effective adjudication of cases, being stressed for several years, firstly,
increasing number of cases the existing number of judges physically can’t cope with
was mentioned. Secondly, it’s indecent attitude of individuals involved in proceedings
towards their duties and trial. Thirdly, it’s heavy proceedings in particular categories of
cases. As one of solutions of a problem offered by the Plenary Session and which raised
great aftermath and, we hope, also advancement of legislation, is compulsory
implementation of institution of sworn advocate at least in cassation instance.
At the Plenary Session, judges turned attention also to unwanted and even dangerous
trend developed by attitude and action of other branches of power in present situation,
maintaining and enhancing myth on inability and unwillingness of courts to work
effectively. The Plenary Session of the Supreme Court called for mutual tolerance of
authorities towards each other, as in the case, when one power permanently in general
(not in the concrete) criticises another branch, public trust, which has been low already,
is injured even more, moreover, it affects public attitude towards the state in general.
Too frequent and unreasoned reproaches to courts injure authority of those. Courts are
reproached of long terms of review of cases, but judges already work in overload at
present. The responsibility of the state is to provide appropriate working conditions to
judges, and work load is condition of the main priority.
Ineta Ziemele, the judge of the ECHR, in recent discussion in magazine “Jurista Vārds”
on efficiency of court processes indicated that, on the basis of applications received in
the ECHR, one can’t say that those would show problem with length of proceedings in
bulk and would testify about systemic problem of Latvian courts. The colleague
indicates that discussion about efficiency of judiciary should be brought to another
channel, namely, turning particular attention to qualitative aspects of court work. One
should agree that both terms and quality depends on resources of a court, training of its
personnel and availability of necessary information to judges.
Efficiency of proceedings is not problem of a court and judges only, but it is
responsibility of all officials involved in proceedings. Today’s conference within
Advocates’ Days, moreover two years in turn, is dedicated to this particular issue, and it
brings satisfaction.
The programme of today’s conference is very interesting – except for traditional
sections of civil law and criminal law, work has also been organised in third section –
the section of professional ethics of lawyers. Moreover, in this section efficiency of
proceedings has been examined in unusual view – analysing, how proceedings or, to say
more correctly, attitude towards proceedings is formed by media, how the fourth power
affects courts’ work. This aspect has been analysed little previously.
Another valuable aspect is that at advocates’ conferences, the same as at judicial
conferences, each of us doesn’t act of his/her own. We invite each other to our
conferences and we discuss our joint problems together.
I wish you success in work of conference. Let us find at least self-confidence, if not
solutions. I wish that both to advocates and other participants of the conference.