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Polina KAZAKEVYCH,

Head of the International Cooperation Department of the Secretariat of the High Qualifications Commission of Judges of Ukraine, National Correspondent of the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice of the Council of Europe (CEPEJ) from Ukraine, candidate of the Department of Judicial and Law Enforcement, National Law University. Yaroslav the Wise

ASSESSMENT OF EUROPEAN JUDICIAL SYSTEMS AS AN ESSENTIAL ELEMENT OF EFFECTIVE COURT’S ACTIVITY

It was studied the experience of Council of Europe member countries as well as СEPEJ documents on standards, criteria and methods for determination the efficiency of the judicial system. The assessment of judicial systems by the subject of its holding could be classified as (1) external, which is carried out by international bodies and institutions (at the level of the Council of Europe this is CEPEJ); (2) internal, national, which is carried out at the country level and may be: (a) internal system (when the efficacy of the judicial system provided by representatives or authorities within the judiciary itself), and (b) external (when the assessment of judicial activities made by citizens, public organizations and associations or projects financed from the independent sources).

Under the degree of binding for the judicial system, the results of its assessment may have (a) mandatory nature; (b) advisory in nature. The legal power of courts assessment results depends on the subject of its holding, which can be either within the judicial system and, accordingly, such internal assessment will be mandatory, or outside of the judicial system, which will exclude binding findings of such assessment.

Under the subject of the coverage the assessment of the judicial system efficiency may include: (A) the individual elements of the organization of the courts’ activities or such an organization as a whole as are normalized by the legislation on the judiciary; (B) the processual aspects of the movement and the results of the trial which are defined by the procedural law; (C) the assessment of individual judges.

The actual direction of performance criteria development of the national judicial system efficiency is the development of the effective mechanism for tracking such issues as a) the staffing of courts; b) equability load on judges in the courts.

Such procedures should be tracked by the State Court Administration of Ukraine and there should be taken appropriate measures, including wearing a submission to the appropriate authorities on the need to reduce (or increase) in the number of permanent positions of judges in a particular court or raise the issue of the elimination of the court, or create a new court - in the event of such a need for particular territory.

Key words: the Council of Europe, CEPEJ, access to justice, the assessment of the court work, the efficiency of the court work, the criteria of the court work efficiency.

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