Between 3 – 4 December a group of 35 judges from Moldova, Romania and the Netherlands discussed challenges and solutions in managing case load and ensuring judicial quality, marking another step in the assistance the Netherlands is providing to the Moldovan justice sector.
This two-day seminar, which was hosted by the Moldovan National Institute of Justice, was a follow-up to the study visit of a delegation of Moldovan judges to The Hague earlier in the year. It enabled the participants to deepen the discussion on potential remedies to overburdened courts. In sharing Moldovan, Romanian and Dutch experiences, it became clear that there are no easy fixes for this challenge, as it is strongly intertwined with adjacent issues, such as the budgeting for the judiciary (and HRM policies), provisions in the criminal and civil procedural codes, the level of trust in the judiciary, and the structure of the courts.
The involvement of Romanian expertise was of clear added value. The cultural proximity and the legal-historical relations ensured that the explored opportunities for improving the Moldovan practice stayed close to the Moldovan legal environment.
CILC and its partner organisation in Chișinău, the Institute of Penal Reform, are committed to continue these peer discussion sessions on case load and quality assurance in 2016.
The project Support to cooperation between Superior Council of Magistracy of Moldova and the Netherlands Council for the Judiciary is financed by the Netherlands Embassy in Bucharest.