Seminar
Courts, excellence and social trust

March 18th, 2009, 14:30, CES Seminar Room

Organization: Centre for Social Studies / Permanent Observatory for Portuguese Justice

 
Presentation

The social context of justice and the performance of judicial courts have undergone enormous transformations during the last decades, amending social conscience as what regards to the importance of the role of judicial power in the construction of a democratic Rule of Law and the rising of the social and political visibility of courts.
Recent considerations regarding justice administration specificities stress the intentions of raising the quality and transparency of judicial systems and privilege the factors, internal and external, that influence the performance of courts and the reinforcement of their legitimacy and social trust.
The present seminar assumes this challenge, focusing on pointing out routes that may contribute towards the quality of justice and consequent increase of social trust, beneficiating from reflections developed by Pim Albers, Special Advisor of The European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) of the Council of Europe, and from the analyses of the various intervenients.

 
Programme

14:30 Opening
Boaventura de Sousa Santos

15:00 “From European Evaluation of Judicial Systems to Courts Excellence”
Pim Albers (Special Advisor of The European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice)
Presentation (pdf)

16:00 Interventions
Moderator: António Casimiro Ferreira (CES/OPJ)

Anabela Rodrigues (Director CEJ)
António Cluny (President SMMP)
Conceição Gomes (CES/OPJ)
Daniel Costa (Secretary of Justice)
Jorge Duarte (District Attorney)
José António Barreiro (Lawyer)
José Mouraz Lopes (Judge)
Nuno Coelho (ASJP)
Teresa Carla Oliveira (FEUC)

16:45 Break

17:00 Debate

18:30 Closing

 
Biographic Note

Pim Albers is, since 2006, Special Advisor of The European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) of the Council of Europe. Between January, 2002 and February, 2006, was member (within the field of research and strategy) of the Strategy Department Administration of Justice, Dutch Ministry of Justice, also European Union and Council of Europe expert and advisor at the Dutch Council for the Judiciary, in the Netherlands. He has written and published several articles on themes related to justice administration and management, among which we draw attention to the following:
- CEPEJ 2008, European Judicial systems 2008: efficiency and quality of justice, Strasbourg Council of Europe publisher
- P. Albers (2008), Judicial systems in Europe compared, (published as a chapter in Van Rhee C.H. and Uzelac A. (eds) Civil Justice between efficiency and quality: From Ius Commune to the CEPEJ (Intersentia, Antwerp, Oxford, Portland);
- P. Albers (2008), Integrity of judges and prosecutors: fundamental principles and facts, Strasbourg (published as a chapter in the Council of Europe Octopus conference book ”Corruption and Democracy”, Strasbourg Council of Europe publishers);
- P.Albers (2008), Mapping Legal Europe. Article in: the European lawyer (issue 74, Jan. 2008), London;
- P. Albers (2007), How to measure the rule of law: a comparison of three studies. Conference paper Rule of law conference (Hague Institute for Internationalisation and Law, November 2007).
- Council of Europe (2006), European judicial systems: edition 2006, Strasbourg;

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