by Pim Albers, Senior short term expert, ATRECO project
I just completed my first mission to Moldova in the framework of the EU funded project Increased efficiency, accountability and transparency of courts in Moldova (15 – 19 December).
The mission was scheduled to support the Moldovan Superior Council of Magistracy on the topic of judicial performance evaluation.
As part of this mission a meeting was held with the members of the Council and representatives of the National Institute of Justice (responsible for the training of judges, prosecutors, court staff and other legal professionals). We discussed the current practices in evaluating the work and quality of judges and the challenges that the evaluation committee of the Council is facing on the assessment of judges.
I also delivered a workshop attended by the members of the evaluation committee of the Superior Council of Magistracy and by representatives of the National Institute of Justice. The workshop included presentations of international good practice examples on judicial performance evaluation, European standards (for example Opinion No. 17 of the Consultative Council of European Judges on the evaluation of judge’s work) and explanations of working methods for evaluation. A lively debate took place with the participants on the need to modify and improve the practice of the evaluation of the work (performance and quality) of the individual judges in Moldova. Our project team will help them in achieving this goal in the coming two years.
In addition to the subject of judicial performance evaluation that was covered in this mission, also a first meeting took place with the National Institute of Justice on developing a training module for strategic planning and monitoring of court performance. It is expected that in 2015 this module will be ready for implementation.
For the time being, the project is in its earliest stage and we are still in the process of determining the tasks ahead of us and the roles of all parties involved.