If justice delayed is justice denied there could soon be precious little of it from the European Court of Justice unless its procedures are reformed urgently. That was the message from its president, Judge Gil Carlos Rodriguez Iglesias, to EU justice ministers in Brussels yesterday on a series of measures proposed by the court for short-term and long-term reform of the EU's judicial system.
Mr Iglesias warned that both the prospects of further enlargement of the EU the extra authority granted to the court under the Amsterdam Treaty could cripple the EU's already overburdened Luxembourg-based court.
The British junior minister, Ms Kate Hoey, said unless some means were found of expediting points of law arising from asylum cases in the member-states, national systems could simply grind to a halt.
With asylum-seekers entitled to stay in member-states while their legal remedies against deportation are exhausted, such a prospect could quickly lead to a dramatic escalation of numbers. Mr Iglesias also appealed for the recruitment of more translators - a growing translation logjam now means delays of up to six months in judgments while they are translated into every language of the EU. The translation service has seen its workload increase by 63 per cent without extra manpower since 1993 to 273,166 pages last year.
The increase mirrors the increase in the court's own workload - the number of cases pending before the court has risen from 583 in 1990 to 748 in 1998, while the time taken to get a preliminary ruling has gone from 17 months to 21 months in the same period.
In its paper the court suggests a filtering system to allow it to determine quickly which references of points of law from national courts really require decision at ECJ level. Where the answers are already apparent from case law the court should be able to rule by way of simple order.
In the longer term the court suggests, without making specific recommendations, a debate on whether every country should have a national judge and whether some of the court's role could be devolved to national courts.
Mr Iglesias said the court believed it should be given the right to amend its own procedures or at least see such changes adopted by qualified majority voting of ministers instead of unanimity.
