Justice Without Litigation for Europe II

ongoing

A growing number of Member States is modernising their civil justice systems by transferring non-contentious tasks from the judiciary to other entities. Procedural standards and the rule of law have to be guaranteed. Thus, notaries being public office holders are increasingly entrusted with such tasks (e.g. in succession, family law, taking of evidence). National systems differ in tackling the issues of out-of-court justice by notaries. At cross-border level, such procedures need to be facilitated and their enforcement improved through better procedures and case-handling. However,comparisons and systematic knowledge of such ‘outsourcing’ are scarce. This trend of externalised justice is only partially reflected by EU civil justice instruments. Building on the results of a first JuWiLi project, this project will extend and deepen the analysis by including additional Member States which might have considerably different approaches as to non-contentious procedures. By a systematic data collection, a comparative legal analysis, and identification of common minimum procedural standards, the project will enhance trust and faciliate cross-border procedures between these different justice systems of the Member States. The project will extend the economic evaluation to these countries, identify good practice examples in terms of efficiency increases, and conduct a behavioral economics analysis. A focus will be laid in the areas of consensual divorces (Brussels IIb Reg.) and successions, while other areas stay in play as well. After a series of events and based on the study results, policy recommendations addressed to the national and EU levels will be developed. They will show best practice examples to be followed, and the eventual need for improvements as to the effectiveness of systems and the coherent application of EU law. The project will contribute to improve daily cross-border cooperation and case-handling between notaries in the EU by improving CNUE's ENN platform.