Assembly of the EULEX Judges

Art. 4 of the Law on Jurisdiction (2008/03 L 053) describes the Assembly of the EULEX Judgesas the self-governing body that “will be responsible to manage all issues related to the administration and the work of the EULEX Judges, according to the modalities established by EULEX Kosovo”. The OPLAN itself, in its Annex “M”, foresees the Assembly of the EULEX Judges.

It is comprised of the Judges who have been appointed by the Head of Mission and thus are in a position to exercise their judicial and MMA functions.
With an incisive expression, it can be said that by executing the tasks entrusted to it, the Assembly of the EULEX Judges plays the role of "watchdog of judicial independence”.

The most important of the tasks entrusted to the Assembly is to endorse the modalities on case selection and case allocation, based on pre-determined objective criteria and procedural safeguards that will be consistent with the applicable law.
This is of pivotal importance in order to ensure the respect of the independence and the impartiality of the EULEX judges.
Other issues falling within the scope of competence of the Assembly can be summarized as follows:

reporting on Monitoring, Mentoring and Advising;
organizing the continuous training o judges;
ruling on any appeal on disciplinary decisions;
electing by secret ballot two members of the Disciplinary Board;
electing by secret ballot the judges who will compose the Panel for Selection of Judges;
deciding on requests of disqualification against the President of the Assembly of EULEX Judges further significant task of the Assembly.

This means, in practice, a vast array of very diverse topics on which the Assembly might be called to decide: proof of this is easily obtained perusing the agendas of the meetings of the Assembly which so far were held. As an example, the Assembly so far was called to decide on the following relevant topics:

Guidelines for case allocation for EULEX Judges
Case allocation for the Supreme Court (an annexes)
Guidelines for case allocation in civil cases
A final integrated document on MMA Activities performed by EULEX Judges
Organizational guidelines for ELEX Court Teams
An advice to the Kosovo Judicial Council on the Case Allocation System.

Last, but not least, the Assembly is a very useful forum for the exchange of experiences and best practices: an issue which is particularly sensitive when it comes to allowing the Judges a shared approach to problems, both juridical and organizational.
The functioning of the Assembly is regulated by the “Rules of the Assembly of the EULEX Judges”. Its structure foresees as supporting administrative structures: