The EJE project partners organize the Final Conference of the EJE project – June the 18th, 2012 - Paris

The EJE project partners will meet in Paris on 18th June the 18th next to give an overview of actions and progress made for the last two years. The EJE partners will take this opportunity to draft also the orientation to be given to the project in the future.

The project had the objective to improve the enforcement of judgments in Europe, (1) by providing citizens and judicial officers – enforcement agents, with the information required to enforce a judgment in another Member State, and (2) by improving mechanisms of cooperation and communication between European judicial officers.

At the origin of the EJE project, there was an observation: since its creation following the Treaty of Amsterdam, the European area of Justice, Freedom and Security has gradually broken down the barriers to the free movement of enforcement orders in Europe. However, despite this real progress, the current enforcement of one country’s court decisions in another country of the European Union still gives rise to major practical difficulties, associated with the territorial nature of civil enforcement procedures. The diversity of national laws and lack of harmonisation of Member States’ national rules on civil enforcement procedures make it difficult to implement the right to enforcement that should be guaranteed  in a cross-border situation and unfortunately may give rise to a sense of injustice among litigants and a feeling of having been abandoned.

So, the EJE project has pursued two fundamental objectives : (1) to provide European citizens with the information needed to enforce court judgments in the territories of other Member States, and thereby improving access to justice, and (2) to give European judicial officers the tools needed to bolster mutual trust so as to encourage closer cooperation in their work as enforcement agents.

To achieve these objectives, the EJE project partners have implemented several actions, such as job-shadowing programs, exchange of best practices, writing notes on the enforcement procedures in different Member States, studies on National implementation of European instruments regarding free movement of enforcement orders, discussions about legislation in preparation ...). They also provided the EJE project with an essential tool: the EJE website - www.europe-eje.eu - which makes available to citizens and legal professionals information about law and procedures needed to enforce a judgment in another Member State and a European directory of judicial officers. This website also highlights the European news which are of interest to judicial officers and the opinion of the EJE project partners on these issues.

During these last two years, the EJE project was so attached to make the right of enforcement a real guaranteed right in cross-border cases, as it has been enshrined by the ECHR (ruling Hornsby/Greece - ECHR 19 March 1997) as an integral component of the right to a fair trial. In order to do this, the EJE project has, for the first time, brought about collaboration among judicial officers, key players in civil enforcement procedures, in order to improve in access to law through the use of new technology and to reinforce mutual trust between judicial officers. The EJE project also offered judicial officers a forum allowing them to develop tools and promote best practices in the field of enforcement. This is of particular importance at a time when the European Commission intends, for the first time, to work on enforcement itself, by publishing a proposal for a regulation creating a European bank account preservation order.

The final conference, to be held in 18th June, 2012 in Paris, at the French National Chamber of judicial officers with all the EJE project partners, will be the opportunity to present the actions implemented and results achieved in the last two years, with the financial support of the European Commission, both in terms of judicial cooperation in civil matters and in terms of e-justice. Representatives of European and National institutions and legal professionals, key players in the European area of justice, will attend. So, this conference will also be a chance, thanks to the pool of experts gathered for the occasion, to clarify the future orientations of the EJE project and its next steps.

Access to this conference is free but registration is required. Interpreting will be provided in French and English.

To see the program and register for the conference: ….