From André Ride, the General Inspector of the Judicial Services



The mission of carrying out performance inspections of the courts which is incumbent upon the Inspectorate General of the Judicial Services is similar to performing an audit. Thus their objective is to evaluate the courts’ activity and their organization, and to make recommendations to the chief judicial officers, the chief court officers [Translator’s note: the First President and the Prosecutor General], and civil servants. Similar in nature to audits due to the application of the audi alteram partem principle [Translator’s note: the right of all parties to be heard], these are submitted to discussion by the magistrates and civil servants concerned, and also the absence of any coercive aspect in the overall inspection process. Thus the goal of these missions is in furtherance of improving the quality of justice.

 The missions differ from audits as that term is traditionally used by the power of the Inspectorate General to advise the Minister of Justice of any irregularities found and, where appropriate, the failure to implement the recommendations made to them by the courts that have been inspected. They also differ insofar as the information that they provide to the Conseil Supérieur de la Magistrature [National Judicial Council] in its capacity as the recommending and appointment institution in the career development of magistrates.

For the purpose of effectuating a systematic evaluation of the courts, at regular intervals or promptly upon any irregularity reported, the Inspectorate General of the Judicial Services has since 2006 prepared a methodology that applies competence standards that are appropriate to each of the courts which it inspects:  the district courts, regional courts, courts of appeal, and the commercial courts.




This work has been made possible by the former extensive and diverse professional experience of the magistrates who are members of the Inspectorate General of the Judicial Services and the advice of certain appellate court chief judicial officers who are recognized for their knowledge and expertise in the administration of the courts.

This has allowed for identifying five missions that are common to all courts, and for verifying the circumstances under which each of them is performed: the mission of the general administration and activities of the court’s services, the mission of ensuring civil and criminal justice, the mission of ensuring juvenile justice and lastly, the mission of ensuring access to justice.

     For each of these activities, the Inspectorate General  of  Judicial Services asked itself what are the risks of irregularity, and then prepared the corresponding points of inspection; thus, as regards the administration of the court, it is appropriate to ensure that the number of magistrates and the head count of the court clerks are suitable to the volume of its activity; that the steering of the court, the sharing of information by the chief judicial officers between themselves and with the head clerk of the court, in other words, that the internal communications are sufficient; that the evaluation of their budgetary resources and their management are satisfactory; that the inspection of internal accounting processed is properly ensured.

 As regards the points of inspection relating to civil justice and criminal justice, their adherence to reasonable periods of time in the process of the proceedings, the allocation of an appropriate number of magistrates and civil servants for the handling of the foregoing, the age of inventory and its turnover also constitute points of inspection.

The Inspectorate General of the Judicial Services has insisted on the broad dissemination of the competence standards in order to ensure their transparency. Thus they have been posted on the web site of the Ministry of Justice which can be accessed not only by all of the magistrates but especially as regards the chief judicial officers, that they be able to retrieve the elements required for an inspection of the courts of their respective branch that are mandated by the Code of Judicial Organization.

 These tools are regularly updated to ensure their conformity with amendments to the legal rules and with the applicable ministerial recommendations.


 The conferences on inspections of courts, judges and prosecutors of the European Union

 

The first conference of the institutions whose purpose is the inspection of the courts, judges and prosecutors of the countries of the European Union took place in 2008 in Madrid upon the initiative of the General Council of the judiciary of Spain. The second was held in Paris on the 19th of February 2010 under the auspices of the French Inspectorate General of the Judicial Services. The next conference is currently under preparation by the General Council of the judiciary of Italy.

The objective of these conferences, to which are invited those countries that are candidates for membership in the European Union, is to share the fundamental principles, the methodology and the professional practices that the member states have implemented. If their objective is the same, meaning the assurance of efficient justice and substantiating the trust of the persons appearing before the courts, their economic partners and their staffs, the status of the institutions charged with inspections of the courts varies from one country to another. Increased mutual awareness of these institutions and a sharing of their practices constitute a major contribution to the mutual recognition of judicial decisions, the principle adopted by the European Union on the occasion of the summit meeting in Tampere in 1999 and confirmed by the Hague program in 2004. The conference of Paris allowed for the official adoption of the principle of convening regular meetings in one of the EU member states and implementing a follow-up task force to carry out work between the meetings. It also provided the opportunity of drawing up a listing of the institutions involved, and providing the name of each along with that of a contact person.


The international activity of the Inspectorate General of Judicial Services

The Inspectorate General of Judicial Services, an administrative body that reports directly to the Minister of Justice, has been developing an appropriate international activity.
Accordingly, it offers its expertise and cooperation to countries that in some cases do not have court inspection services in place, as well as to those countries that are seeking to reform their existing inspection services.

The Inspectorate General welcomes delegations to Paris on a regular basis to present its own various missions, and also hosts foreign inspectors whom it includes in its performance inspections of the courts. This was recently the case with an English inspector general and Moroccan inspectors.

The  General Inspector and the French inspectors travel to foreign countries to provide expertise in cases where the latter are desirous of establishing or improving their inspection systems (for example, in 2010, travel to the United Arab Emirates, to China, Lebanon and Jordan) and taking part in international colloquia dedicated to the quality of justice.

One inspector of the Judicial Services is specifically seconded to handle the organization and the coordination of such international activities.