The International Symposium on “Human Resources and Strategic Court Management Within the Framework of Court Excellence” was held online on 15 December 2021 under the Joint Project on “Strengthening the Institutional Capacity of Court of Cassation”. In the symposium, knowledge and experience on the roles and responsibilities of assistant judges and other support staff within the framework of court excellence, including high courts of appeal, and on the relevant legal framework in comparative law were shared.
Christophe Poirel, Human Rights Director of the Council of Europe, and Eyup Yeşil, First Vice President and Head of the General Assembly of Criminal Chambers, spoke in the opening of the event. In his opening remarks, Poirel pointed out that the Project had made significant progress and gained momentum particularly in the recent period and also highlighted that the position and training of assistant judges and prosecutors were considered of strategic importance in various Council of Europe Member States, including the Republic of Turkey. Yeşil, on the other hand, indicated that the Court of Cassation had recently focused its reform activities on increasing the efficiency and judicial quality of the judiciary, which is the third main pillar of these studies.
Approximately 130 participants, including chamber presidents, bench members, rapporteur judges and public prosecutors of the Turkish Court of Cassation, attended the symposium. The sessions were moderated respectively by Eyup Yeşil, First Vice President and Head of the General Assembly of Criminal Chambers of the Court of Cassation, and Adem Albayrak, First Vice President and Head of the General Assembly of Civil Chambers of the Court of Cassation. Speakers who contributed to these sessions with their presentations included Hakan Şeker, Deputy Director General for Legislation in the Ministry of Justice, Luca Marazzi, Justice at the Swiss Federal Supreme Court and Representative for Switzerland at Consultative Council of European Judges (CCJE), Javier Luis Parra García, Secretary General of the Superior Court of Justice of Murcia, Dr Mustafa Saldırım, Deputy Secretary General of the Court of Cassation, Jeffrey Apperson, Vice President of the National Center for State Courts (NCSC), and Jaša Vrabec, Head of the Office for Court Management Development at the Supreme Court of the Republic of Slovenia.
The Joint Project on “Strengthening the Institutional Capacity of Court of Cassation” is co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe and the Court of Cassation of Turkey is the end beneficiary of the Project.
