Justice: court presidents estimate 35% judges in France

The presidents of jurisdiction has set up a national repository of the workload of magistrates, directly operational, even though the Ministry of Justice boards in vain over for years.

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The presidents of the courts have released their calculator and their verdict is at the height of the discomfort of justice: according to them, there are today 1,500 headquarters magistrates (those who judge) in the courts of first instance, 35.5% of the workforce.

This shock figure is the result of a national repository of the workload of magistrates, which has just been prepared with a cautious methodology by the National Conference of Presidents of Judicial Tribunals based on the activity of Justice in 2021. In other words, it does not take into account the outstanding file stocks or processing times, only the need to treat the flow in good conditions. Nor does it account for the needs to fill cyclical absences (sick leave, maternity leave, etc.).

The Ministry of Justice has for its accelerated side in recent months, singularly since the alarm cry of the “Tribune of 3,000 magistrates” published on November 23 in Le Monde, its vast project of the evaluation of The workload of magistrates. But it should not be completed before the end of the year. “This is an ambitious, long-term site. As a comparison, Germany, which has such a system, has set four years to build”, justifies to Chancery. A measurement tool is currently being experienced in twenty jurisdictions with 1,000 magistrates, specifies the department. The presidents of judicial tribunals therefore preceded it.

“We have nothing against this work of the ministry and we are associated there. The repository we have elaborated may not be perfect, but it has the advantage of being ready. He can evolve each Year and be corrected, “says Benjamin DeParis, President of the Evry Tribunal and the Conference of Presidents. “The work they did is not in the outbidding, it is serious and is part of the Court of Auditors in vain for years,” says Jean-Michel Hayat, first President of the Court Call of Paris. According to him, if the Ministry of Justice did not carry out this site open from the 1990s, “it is that everyone knew it would lead to planning needs”.

A repository based on the actual tasks of the judges

Côté Methodology, the Conference of Presidents has chosen not to refer to the European comparisons calculated by the European Commission for the Effectiveness of Justice (CEPEJ) according to the number of magistrates per capita, because the judicial systems are not Not comparable … and the delay of France appears vertiginous. His “National Repository for Evaluation of Headquarters Magistrates” is based on the actual tasks performed by the judges. Eighty tasks have been thus isolated, post-divorce litigation hearings at the educational assistance hearings of child judges, through the Presidency of immediate appearances or decisions of the sentencing judge.

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/Media reports.