News item | 5/16/2023 | 4:00 pm
Judges and justices who reach the statutory retirement age of 70 can continue to be employed as deputy judges or deputy justices until the age of 73. Minister Franc Weerwind for Legal Protection has submitted a bill to the House of Representatives for this purpose.
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This deployability of these judges and counselors as deputy judges is necessary because the judiciary is struggling with arrears in settling cases due to a lack of capacity. The current temporary arrangement that makes employability possible expires on 15 July 2023. With the proposed bill, Minister Weerwind wants to extend employability for 3 years.
Minister Weatherwind:
“Quality and timely justice is essential for the functioning of our rule of law. It goes without saying that this starts with the availability of sufficient judges and counselors. With the deployment of these highly experienced judges and counselors as deputies, we retain their knowledge and skills and we can mitigate the backlogs, high workload and long lead times in settling cases.”
COVID-19
Counselors and judges aged 70 and older are currently available as deputies in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. The temporary arrangement that makes this possible via the Second Collective Emergency Act COVID-19 expires on 15 July 2023. Minister Weerwind has decided to extend the employability of judges and justices over the age of 70 for 3 years. In addition to reducing the shortage of capacity and backlogs in settling cases, employability should make a positive contribution to the workload and lead times in the judiciary. The period of 3 years is used to assess whether the deployment as deputies can be made structural.
Lack of capacity
One of the main reasons for the lack of capacity is the age-related outflow of judges and justices. More and more judges and counselors are approaching the statutory retirement age of 70. In addition, some of them retire earlier than this statutory retirement age.
Other measures
In addition to the scheme, other measures have previously been taken to increase capacity in the judiciary. The training capacity for judges and justices has been increased from 80 to 130, resulting in the training of 50 additional justices and judges each year. Furthermore, with the support of the Ministry of Justice and Security, investments have been made in more support staff. This has been explicitly included in the price agreements of 155 million between the Council for the Judiciary and the Ministry of Justice and Security for the period 2023 to 2025. In the period from 2020 to 2022, these price agreements amounted to 95 million.