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CIAO DATE: 2/5/2007
Global Best Practices: Judicial Councils: Lessons Learned from Europe and Latin America
Violaine Autheman, Sandra Elena
April 2004
Abstract
International and regional human rights treaties recognize the right to a fair trial by an independent tribunal in the determination of rights and obligations in civil, commercial and administrative matters and in the determination of criminal charges. The right to a fair trial and its core components, including the “reasonable time” requirement and the principle of judicial independence, is now universally accepted. Building upon the declarations of principle of legally binding conventions, international and regional expert guidelines and principles have aimed at fleshing out the specific elements of judicial independence. In addition, international and regional human rights courts and commissions have interpreted the provisions of human rights treaties and shed some light on the minimum standards and components of the right to a fair trial and judicial independence.
IFES has synthesized these various efforts into set of core, consensus principles and best practices that can be used to assess systematically the degree of independence of judiciaries worldwide: the Judicial Integrity Principles [JIP]. In designing the JIP, IFES has chosen a broad definition of the notion of “judicial integrity”. This term covers a wide range of issues related to the independence and accountability of the judiciary, both the institution and the judges as individual decision-makers. IFES has chosen this broad definition of the notion of “judicial integrity” to emphasize the importance of balance the independence and accountability issues and to identify in a systematic way related reforms that need to be undertaken.
