Project – A litigation-free justice for Europe

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The CNUE is a partner in the EU-supported project “Dispute-free Justice for Europe”, which will start on 1 December 2020.

In Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and the Slovak Republic, there is a legal peculiarity that notaries exercise jurisdictional functions, particularly in succession proceedings, but also in other areas of civil justice (e.g. family law, payment orders). In Slovenia, the introduction of such jurisdictional functions for notaries in succession cases has been under consideration for some years now. In view of this, the jurisdictional function of notaries in the context of the EU legal framework needs to be examined in more detail.

The project will analyse for Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and the Slovak Republic the term “court” in the context of the EU Succession Regulation in the context of non-contentious judicial procedures of notaries from the perspective of comparative law, fundamental rights and the rule of law. The project will also include Slovenia, where the reflection of policy makers, academics and the Chamber of Notaries on the transfer of judicial tasks to notaries is progressing.

In this context, the project aims to improve the application of the EU Succession Regulation through a better knowledge and understanding of the jurisdictional functions performed by notaries in the above-mentioned Central European Member States. As the term “court” has been extended by the Succession Regulation and other EU instruments to legal professionals (e.g. notaries) exercising jurisdictional functions, the project aims to identify common minimum procedural standards that allow for the fulfilment of the criteria of the concept of “court” laid down by EU law. The project also analyses fundamental rights aspects and rule of law requirements in the participating Member States. On this basis, recommendations to legislators at European and national level will be presented.

The economic component of the project will carry out an in-depth analysis of the function of civil law notaries as judicial commissioners in order to assess the social and economic benefits resulting from these non-litigious judicial procedures. The study will include a major data collection exercise to identify and quantify the significant economic and legal benefits that can be derived from reducing an economy’s ex-post legal expenditure. The data collected will be used to develop composite indicators to provide a comprehensive mapping of non-litigation judicial services aimed at reducing the burden on the judicial system. For this purpose, the respective legal acts and litigation prevention judicial services will be compared in substance and scope in order to better reflect non-contentious judicial procedures in the European Justice Scoreboard or in the work of the CEPEJ of the Council of Europe. On this basis, new indicators will be developed to better reflect non-contentious judicial proceedings in these instruments. Recommendations and conclusions addressed to policy makers will be presented.