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High-level talks as Europe’s top judges visit Dublin

Dublin Castle hosted judges from all of the 28 EU supreme courts for a high-level seminar today and yesterday as they scrutinised each other’s work and judgments.

The Chief Justice from each of fifteen countries attended a conference organised by the Association of Councils of State and Supreme Administrative Jurisdictions of the EU.

28 states

Supreme Court representatives from 28 states of the EU examined each other’s work processes and principles for approaching cases.

The aim of this collaborative exploration is to allow greater access to the decisions, wisdom and jurisprudence of each court in the area of EU law.

It will allow courts in each country to reference, cite or rely upon approaches in other states. 

The conference was hosted by the Irish Supreme Court and its president, Chief Justice Frank Clarke. 

Decision-making

The topic under discussion was ‘how our courts decide: the decision-making process of supreme administrative courts’.

The Association’s aims are:

• Creating a better understanding of EU law by the judges of the supreme administrative courts across Europe,
• Fostering a better knowledge of the functioning of the other supreme administrative courts in the implementation of EU law,
• Improving the mutual trust between judges of the supreme administrative courts of the EU,
• Fostering an effectively and efficiently functioning of administrative justice in the EU,
• Providing opportunities for the exchange of ideas on the rule of law in the administrative judicial systems,
• Ensuring access to the decisions of the supreme administrative courts implementing EU law. 

Jurisdictions engaged in negotiations to join the EU are admitted as observers to the discussions.

Pictured above are President of the UK Supreme Court Baroness Brenda Hale, Chief Justice of Ireland Frank Clarke, and Klaus Rennert, President of the Federal Administrative Court of Germany, and President of CA-Europe.

See more photos at https://www.lawsociety.ie/gazette/gallery-video/top-eu-judges-gather-at-dublin-castle/

All photos by Cian Redmond