Judicial discipline: different approaches in five EU member states

The growing expansion of judicial function in modern democratic societies has stressed, among other things, the need for more effective guaranties of independence and standing of the magistrates. The interest in judicial discipline and ethics has therefore increased and they have become more compelling and challenging issues than in the past. One of the most important challenges is to develop mechanism of liability that do not undermine judicial independence. The chapter analyses some initiatives that were undertaken in the areas of judicial ethics and discipline. The common need was to better define and enforce the rules of judicial conduct, as suggested by the European Council, but the paths followed and the consequent outcomes are quite different. In particular, five situations are considered, which show different approaches towards judicial discipline: Italy, France, Germany, England and Romania. Italy provides an example of a Code of discipline, France and Germany will be analysed together because, despite different initiatives, their disciplinary systems still rest upon generic provisions, England is particularly interesting because of the Guide for judicial conduct that seems to break with a long tradition mainly based on informal disciplinary control and, finally, Romania is an example of the difficulties of the coordination between discipline and ethics. Each paragraph will briefly sum up the main features of the disciplinary system in each Country (source of disciplinary breaches, initiative power, disciplinary court, sanctions) and the innovations introduced in the matter.