Activities of Mikuláš PEKSA related to 2020/2143(DEC)
Shadow reports (1)
REPORT on discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2019, Section IV – Court of Justice of the European Union
Amendments (14)
Amendment 7 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. HighlightStresses the importance of addressing the lack of gender balance within the college of judges; welcomes, however, the fact that efforts in the field of equal opportunities are becoming increasingly visible at the administrative level with a share of women in middle management amounting to 41 % and in senior management amounting to 40 %; notes that the staff in general has a distribution of 39 % men and 61 % women and for AD staff a distribution of46 % men and 54 % women;
Amendment 11 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Notes with concern the high number of cases of burn out reported in recent years within the CJEU; welcomes the fact that in 2019 the CJEU undertook several actions to prevent and address burnout cases such as the hiring of a psychologist, training for staff and an obligatory training programme for managers including a significant wellbeing component; considers that any decisions regarding budgetary cuts and staff reduction measures should be consistent with the principle of maintaining high quality deliverables and take into consideration the constantly increasing workload of the CJEU over the past number of years; urges the CJEU to closely monitor the effectiveness of the newly introduced actions against the increasing workload and deploy more substantial efforts to prevent burnouts where needed;
Amendment 14 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Is concerned that only 46 % of traineeships at the CJEU were paid in 2019; notes, however, that this share rose from 24,1 % in 2018; recognises that 2019 was a transition year towards the gradual introduction of the new regime (CJEU’s decision of 3 December 2018, providing for the possibility of taking on trainees paid by the institutions); notes the estimation that for 2020 the CJEU will remunerate 75 % of its trainees; notes that all traineeships cancelled in the context of the COVID-19- crisis were unpaid traineeships; welcomes the fact that the CJEU foresees the possibility of increasing further the number of paid traineeships, highlights the fact that the possibility of hosting unpaid trainees should only be maintained in theurgently calls on the CJEU to hire its trainees on paid contracts providing allowances covering at least living expenses, with the exception of cases where such trainees receive payments from other sources, based on inter-institutional agreements signed by the CJEU;
Amendment 22 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 20
Paragraph 20
20. Notes the rules in place governing post-office employment of the members of the CJEU; notes that the code of conduct sets out different kinds of restrictions such as a three-year waiting period during which former members must not represent parties in cases before the CJEU, notes further that former members must not be involved, in any manner whatsoever, in cases which were pending before the court of which they were a member or in cases connected with other cases, whether pending or concluded, which they had dealt with as a member of the court; urges the CJEU to fully implement existing provisions of the code of conduct to regulate cases concerning ‘revolving doors'; asks the CJEU to report back to Parliament on all the actions it undertook over the past four years (since revised code of conduct entered into force on 1 January 2017) to prevent conflicts of interests by regulating cases concerning ‘revolving doors’ after a member leaves the CJEU, including the number of cases it scrutinised, the number of cases for which it issued specific instructions and how the CJEU made sure these instructions were followed;
Amendment 24 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 23
Paragraph 23
23. Is concerned that the declarations of financial interests continue to be of a self- declaratory nature; calls on the CJEU to accelerate the process of examining whether this mechanism could be improved in regard to the principle of judicial independenceundertake actions aiming at independently verifying the information provided and report back to Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control; notes that each member submits a declaration of financial interests upon taking office and updates it when necessary; notes that the president of each court examines the declarations with a view to avoiding conflicts of interest when assigning cases to the different judge rapporteurs; reiterates, however, that it should be for a third independent party to review declarations of financial interests and to assess the existence of conflicts of interest;
Amendment 27 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 27
Paragraph 27
27. Appreciates that the CJEU is continuously improving its environmental performance by applying Regulation (EC) No 1221/20096 (EMAS III)which requires monitoring of the different environmental aspects based on indicators; welcomes the fact that most of the 28 indicators, in the form of a ratio per FTE (Full-Time Equivalent), showed a favourable trend in 2019 compared to 2015, the base year of the CJEU’s EMAS system; encourages the CJEU to continue reducing its environmental footprint by implementing carbon-neutral work solutions and clean sources of energy; _________________ 6Regulation (EC) No 1221/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2009 on the voluntary participation by organisations in a Community eco-management and audit scheme (EMAS), repealing Regulation (EC) No 761/2001 and Commission Decisions 2001/681/EC and 2006/193/EC (EUT L 342 af 22.12.2009, s. 1).
Amendment 29 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 28
Paragraph 28
28. Notes with interest that one of the main points of the CJEU’s communication activities in 2019 was an increased use of proprietary social media in order to ensure a greater dissemination of its information; notes that in November 2019, the CJEU started to actively use LinkedIn to further inform interested parties of its work; encourages the CJEU to establish a presence on free and open-source social media networks, such as Mastodon, to achieve further transparency and broader outreach; welcomes the fact that in 2019, the CJEU’s website received a total of 8 150 232 visits (compared to 8 270 495 in 2018) and 36 065 064 page-views (compared to 32 808 573 in 2018); notes that in both 2018 and 2019 a total of EUR 60 000 was budgeted for the outsourcing of some media- monitoring work, which could no longer be carried out in-house, due to the need to redeploy certain human resources to other tasks;
Amendment 30 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 29
Paragraph 29
29. Encourages the CJEU to enhance transparency and welcomes the CJEU’s decision to livestream the delivery of the judgments of its grand chamber through Europe by Satellite (EbS), the Union's TV information service; takes note that the livestreaming of hearings themselves would be an extremely complex and costly matter since it operates in 24 languages and without access to simultaneous interpretation it would be meaningless for the vast majority of Union citizens; welcomes also the fact that as of November 2019 the CJEU publishes requests for preliminary ruling from national courts, internal research notes and national judicial decisions on the website of the Judicial Network of the European Union;
Amendment 32 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 35
Paragraph 35
35. Acknowledges that the CJEU continued to ensure the security of its IT operations in close collaboration with the Computer Emergency Response Team for the EU institutions, bodies and agencies; notes that during 2019 the CJEU was able to handle all cyber-attacks with which it was faced and to ensure the protection of the entire IT landscape without major incident; welcomes the fact that the protection of highly sensitive information was improved by implementing new security measures, including the use of a high-level encryption software; stresses that any encryption software should be open source to avoid security breach through possible backdoors; notes that equipment has been purchased to limit the risk of a breach of sensitive information during the judges’ deliberations; welcomes the fact that, besides the technical and operational measures taken to ensure cyber protection, the CJEU in 2019 launched major awareness raising initiatives;
Amendment 33 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 35 a (new)
Paragraph 35 a (new)
35 a. Notes that the CJEU established an innovation lab in order to explore the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for judiciary systems; is concerned about the human rights impact of using AI in judiciary systems; asks the CJEU to provide more information about the activities of the innovation lab to Parliament;
Amendment 34 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 35 b (new)
Paragraph 35 b (new)
35 b. Welcomes the fact that the CJEU reinforced its internal legal framework in the field of data protection in order to establish independent supervision authorities responsible for monitoring the processing of personal data by the Court of Justice and the General Court when acting in their judicial capacity;
Amendment 35 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 36
Paragraph 36
36. Underlines that the CJEU was the subject of two investigations by the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) in 2019; highlights that the first investigation, launched in 2018, concerned the use of web services on the CJEU’s website, welcomes the fact that following the EDPS’ recommendations and in the light of a judgment of the Court of Justice71a the website has been adapted; notes that a second investigation into the CJEU’s use of Microsoft products is ongoing; notes that the CJEU’s policy is that of having a flexible approach, by considering both open-source technologies and commercial off-the-shelf software and hardware, depending on its needs; encourages the CJEU to prioritise open source technologies in order to prevent vendor lock-in, retain control over its own technical systems, provide stronger safeguards for the privacy and data protection of users and increase security and transparency for the public; _________________ 7 1aJudgment of the Court of Justice of 1 October 2019, Bundesverband der Verbraucherzentralen und Verbraucherverbände - Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband e.V. v Planet49 GmbH, C-673/17, ECLI:EU:C:2019:801.
Amendment 36 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 36 a (new)
Paragraph 36 a (new)
36 a. Encourages the CJEU to follow the EDPS recommendations to renegotiate the Inter-Institutional Licensing Agreement and implementation contract, signed between the Union institutions and Microsoft in 2018, with the objective of achieving digital sovereignty, avoid vendor lock-in and lack of control, as well as ensuring the protection of personal data;
Amendment 38 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 40 a (new)
Paragraph 40 a (new)
40 a. Welcomes the reduction of the average length of proceedings before the Court of Justice and the General Court, while 2019 saw a very significant increase in the number of new cases brought before the Court of Justice (an increase of 14 % as compared to 2018), to a great extent attributable to the considerable rise in the number of appeals;