Proposals for measures that will speed up the pace of adjudication of cases were discussed today by the Legal Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, as part of the continuation of the debate on the three bills concerning the reform of the judiciary.
Among the measures discussed were increasing the civil jurisdiction levels of the Senior District Judge and the District Magistrate, with the aim of reducing the number of Senior District Judges and Presiding District Judges required to carry out the task of clearing the backlog of cases in the Courts and at the same time giving more flexibility to the system.
Objections were expressed during the discussion at the meeting, both by the Bar Association and by Members of Parliament The Bar Association pointed out that such an arrangement is a patchwork and poses risks as difficult cases may be assigned to inexperienced judges.
In her statements after the conclusion of the meeting, the chairperson of the Committee, DISY MP Fotini Tsiridou, referred to the objections raised by the Bar Association in a note. As she said, such a solution will not solve the big problem of backlogged cases in the courts, it will just be a patch, and added that "we should move forward with the reform and whatever else is needed to promote the specialization of judges."
"Personally, I also raised the issue that with the establishment of the commercial court, the provincial courts and their presiding judges will be unburdened with large, high-profile cases, which have their own complexities," Ms. Tsiridou and stressed that "the establishment of a commercial court and a maritime court is a huge reform of the justice system."
Referring to the reform in general, she said that "the three bills that we have before us, we are of the opinion as DISY that they should proceed yesterday." She explained that with the proposed bills, "we now have tripartite jurisdiction at the highest level of the judiciary, the creation of a Court of Appeal and then a Supreme Court, which will be separated into a Supreme Court and a Constitutional Court, so that we ensure the so-called checks and balances."
He added that with this separation, it also serves the Republic's compliance with the recommendations of international organizations, so that the Supreme Constitutional, which will be in the tertiary jurisdiction, will act as an appellate supreme judicial council, which will also review the decisions of the judges of the Supreme Constitutional Court, thus granting a remedy to judicial candidates who wish to challenge any decision of a first instance judicial council, which also affects them adversely.
"In general, we see that there are so many advantages with the proposed judicial reform bills, specificity, faster adjudication and a return to disciplinary control of judges of one court from another, to have checks and balances," he said, noting that the reform is also moving forward in the trial courts, with the so-called back log. For this reason, on the initiative of the Ministry of Justice, a group with representatives of all political factions has been set up to study the modernisation of the primary jurisdiction of the provincial courts," she concluded.
After the meeting, AKEL MP Aristos Damianou said that a consensus between the Parliament and the Government was needed to reach a comprehensive reform of the justice system as soon as possible. Regarding the debate on the bills, he said that so far "there has been no documentation on a number of questions raised by the parties in the Legal Affairs Committee, including AKEL".
"We must continue this discussion, with a view to completing it, in order to find the necessary consensus, so that there can be constitutional amendments, if necessary, but also regulations that mainly concern the primary justice system," he stressed. Damianou, noting that the main weakness of this reform is that "it does not deal thoroughly, systematically and scientifically with the changes that need to be made in the primary justice system, i.e. where the vast majority of citizens, justice officials and the courts themselves suffer".
He also said that in the ongoing dialogue "we should draw from the positive example of the debate on the reform of the T/A", and that there should be mutual retreats in order to find the necessary convergences. "With maximalist positions on the part of those in power, and with various communication treatments and by the legal service, in some cases, no consensus is created. What is needed is dialogue, a spirit of consensus and not logic of 'take it or leave it'," he said.
Replying to questions about the objections raised by AKEL, he said that the main point is that "instead of starting the reform from the primary judiciary, where the majority of the problems are, it started from the Supreme Court."
"The experience of previous years demonstrates that while, for example, we gave the green light and the administrative court has been functioning in order to remove a volume of work from the Supreme Court, not only has this not happened, but the volume of work has multiplied," he added, expressing reservations as to whether this reform is the answer to delays, but also to the quality of the administration of justice.
Concerns were also expressed during the meeting by DIKO MPs Panicos Leonidou and Christiana Erotokritou.Leonidou raised the question of whether the reverse proportional implementation will bring the desired result and stressed that the Justice Ministry needs to submit a comprehensive proposal. Erotokritou noted that we should be concerned about the quality of justice being administered, judging the attempt at regulation as "bona fide" but expressing concern about the outcome. He referred, however, to the creation of a task force to adjudicate backlogged cases. EDEK MP Kostis Efstathiou expressed the view that it is impossible and disastrous not to have a comprehensive regulation.
Source: CNA
Contents of this article including associated images are belongs Cyprus Times
Views & opinions expressed are those of the author and/or Cyprus Times
Source
