Global Solutions, Local Damages: A Critical Study in Judicial Councils in Central and Eastern Europe

Michal Bobek 

College of Europe

David Kosar 

New York University School of Law
November 7, 2013

Department of European Legal Studies Research Paper in Law, 07/2013 
Abstract:      

This article examines why, how, and with what results have judicial councils spread under the influence of European institutions throughout Central and Eastern Europe in the course of the last twenty years. It first traces back how the judicial councils, themselves just one possible form of administration of courts, have emerged as the recommended universal solution Europe-wide and internationally. Second, it discusses how has this model been exported under the patronage of European and international institutions to transition countries in Central and Eastern Europe. Assessing, thirdly, the reality of the functioning of such new judicial councils in these countries, in particular in Slovakia and Hungary, with the Czech Republic without a judicial council providing a counter-example, it is suggested that their impact on further judicial and legal transition has been either questionable or outright disastrous. This brings, eventually, into question the legitimacy as well as the bare reasonableness of the entire process of European/international standards setting and their later marketing or in reality rather imposition onto the countries in transition.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 35

Keywords: International standards; soft law; European Union; Council of Europe; administration of courts; judicial councils; court presidents; judges; Central and Eastern Europe; transition; law exportation

Full text available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2351299