On 17th October 2018, the 10th National Correspondents Meeting of the European Judicial Network (EJN) took place in The Hague under the Austrian Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
The Austrian Presidency, Chair of the meeting, welcomed the participants and presented the preparatory questionnaire and the main topics for the upcoming 51st Plenary Meeting of the EJN in November in Vienna. In particular, for this meeting the EJN will discuss the implementation and application of European legal instruments based on mutual recognition and their impact for the Network and its Contact Points. The aim is to identify and discuss practical problems and potential solutions in the (non-) application of the instruments which have been less functional to practitioners.
The Secretary to the EJN reported briefly about the discussion held the previous day at the Presidency Board meeting and presented the priority list for the second semester of 2018 and the state of achievement of the activities of the EJN, in particular the following:
- EJN Secure connection (EJNSC), its security features and the recently drafted EJNSC Quick Guide;
- Ongoing EJ/EJN Project on the Assessment of the Allocation of Cases to Eurojust and to the EJN;
- State of play of translations of the updated joint paper “Assistance in International Cooperation in Criminal Matters for Practitioners”;
- Cooperation of the EJN in relation to the e-Justice Portal;
- Input provided by the EJN working group on e-Evidence;
- Participation of EJN to the SIRIUS project;
- The need for updates regarding the Fiches Belges and the list of measures in the Atlas;
- The relations with the European Judicial Cybercrime network;
- The development regarding relations with other judicial networks outside of the EU. Particularly the connections with the UNODC WACAP and CASC Networks.
The EJN Secretariat informed about the state of play of the 2017 EJN Work Programme, budget execution and the objectives of the various projects: e.g. among others the language training that this year focused on the judicial system of Latin American Countries; and the Awareness and cooperation with the network partners.
It was also underlined the value of the outcomes of the 50th Plenary Meeting as well as those of the 2018 EJN National/Regional meetings. It was reported about the proposal of the EJN Secretariat and the Austrian Presidency to present during the last COPEN Meeting of 2018 the conclusions on the different topics that were discussed during this year, e.g. the EJN in retrospective, EIO discussed in different fora and the 51st EJN plenary conclusions on the Mutual recognition instruments that will be discussed in Vienna.
Furthermore, the National Correspondents discussed the revised Principles for appointing the EJN Contact Points; the Welcome Package for the newly appointed Contact Points and the new methodology for the drafting of the Report.
In order to raise awareness of the EJN in the Member States, the Secretariat showed a video demonstration explaining the users what they can find in the Homepage of the EJN website as well as how to create bookmarks of the EJN website considering the different operating systems. Also, it was reported the state of play of the translations in all EU languages of the Homepage and of other relevant sections of the EJN website and what remained to be done to complete the project
The Austrian Presidency thanked the National Correspondents for their participation and welcomed everyone to the 51st Plenary Meeting of the European Judicial Network, which will take place in Vienna on 21st -23rd November 2018.