The Network of the Presidents of the Supreme Judicial Courts of the European Union held its latest Colloquium and General Assembly on 9-11 November 2023 in Vienna. Upon invitation from Dr. Elisabeth Lovrek, President of the Supreme Court of Austria, Dr. András Zs. Varga, President of the Curia and Dr. Judit Gyarmathy, Secretary General of the Curia also attended the event.
The participants of the conference examined the following three main topics: i. uniformity and internal divergences of case-law at Supreme Court level, ii. the judicial dialogue between national and supranational courts in respect of fundamental rights issues, and iii. the impact of Artificial Intelligence on the work of the courts and the administration of justice.
In his speech delivered during the session on the uniformity of jurisprudence, the President of the Curia has stressed that, in Hungary, the Curia has a key responsibility for ensuring the uniformity of the courts’ adjudicating activities. The Curia seeks to ensure such uniformity partly through cassation and partly through other means that are to be used specifically for the purposes of the harmonization of jurisprudence, such as the uniformity complaint procedure and the uniformity procedure.
In the Hungarian court system, the Curia has a significant role of mediator, on the one hand, in respect of the three other superior courts, namely the Constitutional Court, the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights, and on the other hand, in respect of the lower instance national courts.
During the morning session of the conference on 10 November, the Network held a joint meeting with the member and observer chief justices of the Network as well as with the high representatives of the Court of Justice of the European Union and of the European Court of Human Rights, including Mr. Koen Lenaerts, President of the European Court of Justice and Ms. Siofra O’Leary, President of the European Court of Human Rights. In his speech, President Lenaerts referred to Hungary’s loyal cooperation with the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union, most recently through the amendment of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
According to the decisions taken at the Network’s General Assembly, the President of the Supreme Court of Serbia was granted observer status within the Network, and the Network’s Board of Directors was partially renewed. Mr. Anders Eka, President of the Supreme Court of Sweden, was elected as the new President of the Network.
Budapest, 10 November 2023
The Communications Department of the Curia of Hungary
