Various aspects of judicial appointments are coming up before the CJEU and ECtHR, as highlighted in the following cases: concerning judicial reform in Poland C-619/18, Commission v. Poland; C- 192/18 ; C‑811/19, C‑840/19; C‑357/19, C‑547/19 and before the ECtHR concerning the appointment to the High Court of Appeals Guðmundur Andri Ástráðsson v. Iceland App no 26374/18, on judicial removals in Baka v Hungary App No 20261/12 or assessment of judicial performance Guz v Poland App No 965/12. Judicial standards are developed as a part of the European principle of judicial independence under Articles: 2, 7, 19 (1) TEU; Arts. 258 and 267 TFEU; 47 EU Charter; 6 and 13 ECHR. And more issues have been raised by the 2020 Rule of Law Report of the European Commission. Notably, almost all EU Member States have either adopted or negotiated some form of the reform of the justice system (See: Figure 1 of 2020 Justice Scoreboard). Many of the reported reforms gave rise to doubts as to their compliance with EU law, in particular, with the standard of external independence of the judges: the system of judicial appointments and guarantees of irremovability from the office. These developments indicate the need for an updated discussion of the implementation of the CJEU and ECtHR standards on rule of law, independence and accountability in relation to judicial appointments.

Given the European Union and Member States’ linked and interactive legal systems, it is up to national judges to evaluate these reforms both within the remit of their own legal systems and, in enforcement of mutual recognition claims, vis-à-vis justice systems of other Member States of the European Union. We thus invite domestic and Euopean judges to a discussion focused on the standards of  judicial independence as it manifests itself in the determination of the system of judicial appointments.

The Transnational Training Workshop aims to support judges, prosecutors and lawyers in developing cooperation amongst them by providing knowledge on the substantive and procedural tools on magistrates’ independence as offered by the overlapping EU and Council of Europe based standards. The training will highlight the different techniques of judicial interaction which would be able to protect judicial bodies from external and internal pressures and foster the European Union’s rule of law.

The training is offered within the  European Commission’s funded project TRIIAL - TRust, Independence, Impartiality and Accountability of judges and arbitrators safeguarding the rule of Law under the EU Charter (Horizon 2020, project no. 853832, JUST-JTRA-EJTR-AG-2018). The TRIIAL Project provides training activities and tools for judges, lawyers, prosecutors, and arbitrators on the European rule of law, mutual trust, judicial independence, impartiality and accountability (see the dedicated website here).