Book chapter

Publication details

Euro-products’ and Institutional Reform in Central and Eastern Europe: A Critical Study in Judicial Councils
in book: Central European Judges under the European Influence: The Transformative Power of the EU Revisited

Publisher: Hart Publishing
ISBN:
Release year: 2015

Author(s) details

David Kosar

Publication description

Keywords:
judicial councils, judicial independence, judicial accountability, court administration, european union, Council of Europe
Abstract:
This chapter 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 in Europe. Second, it discusses how has this model been exported under the patronage of European 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 questionable. This brings, eventually, into question the legitimacy as well as the bare reasonableness of the entire process of European standards setting and their later marketing or in reality rather imposition onto the countries in transition.