he UIHJ, represented by its Honorary 1st Vice-President, Mathieu Chardon, attended the 40th meeting of the CEPEJ Working Group on Quality of Justice on 13 and 14 April 2026 in Copenhagen at the headquarters of the National Courts Administration of Denmark.
The CEPEJ was represented by its President, Francesco de Pasquale, its Executive Secretary, Muriel Décot, and by its GT-QUAL Secretary, Clémence Bouquemont. Francesco de Pasquale welcomed the CEPEJ-GT-QUAL members and its experts and observer members. He thanked the members of the previous group for the excellency of their achievements during the past three years and said that the new working group was starting a three-year cycle. He mentioned the CEPEJ working plan for the next four years and stressed the importance of bilateral cooperation. João Arsenio de Oliveria (Portugal) was once again elected Chair of the CEPEJ-GT-QUAL.
Amongst the various issues on the agenda was the preparation of a Charter for promoting users’ trust and human-centered justice to ensure justice systems accessible, fair, transparent in an increasingly digitalized environment. After a fruitful exchange of ideas, João Arsenio de Oliveira proposed, among other things, extending discussions with experts and professionals outside of CEPEJ before deciding on the content of the future charter.
The working group then discussed the revision of the methodology relating to satisfaction surveys, particularly from the perspective of developing a technological tool to carry them out. Expert Luigi Cipollini presented his report, which was discussed by the GT-QUAL. Group member Luc Altman (UK), presented the ongoing surveys in the United Kingdom. The draft guidelines on interpretation in judicial proceedings were also discussed, following the presentation of the ongoing work by expert Mira Kadrić, professor at the Centre for Translation Studies, University of Vienna (Austria). Then Jean-Raymond Lemaire, Founding and Honorary President of the European Expertise and Expert Institute (EEEI) took the floor on the need to review the Guidelines on the role of court-appointed experts in judicial proceedings of the member States of the Council of Europe of 2014 (CEPEJ(2014)14), in the light of latest IT and artificial intelligence.
Regarding mediation, discussions focused on the tool(s) to be selected for the mandate of the GT-QUAL, way forward and working method, following a presentation by working group expert Maria Oliveira (Portugal). The meeting also addressed the themes of environmental sustainability, possible development of indicators and/or indexes for measuring the quality of justice, and joint work with other CEPEJ working groups on improving work-life balance in the judiciary.
