Working document in view of the 3 DH-SYSC-I meeting

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DH-SYSC-I (2017)010
recommendations, the Assembly proceeds to the election of judges for a single term of
office of nine years. The Committee is composed of 20 titular members and 20 alternates
appointed by the Bureau of the Assembly on the basis of proposals by the Assembly’s
five political groups according to the D’Hondt system (subject to ratification by the
Assembly). 58 In order to assess the skills and knowledge of candidates, members of the
Committee must, as specified in paragraph 5 of its term of reference, have the necessary
level of competence and experience in the legal field […]. The meetings of the
Committee are held in camera and interpretation is provided in the two official languages
of the Council of Europe, English and French. The chairpersons of the Assembly’s
Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights and the Committee on Equality and Non-
Discrimination are ex officio members of this Committee.”
73. Article 22 of the Convention specifies that “[t]he judges shall be elected by the
Parliamentary Assembly [of the Council of Europe] with respect to each High contracting
Party by a majority of votes cast from a list of three candidates nominated by the High
Contracting Party.” It does so on the basis of the recommendations it receives from its
Committee on the Election of Judges to the European Court of Human Rights.
74. The Committee – specially constituted by the Assembly’s Bureau on the basis of
proposals by the political groups – is mandated by the plenary Assembly to interview
each of the three candidates in person, scrutinize their CVs and make specific
recommendations to the Assembly concerning the qualifications of these candidates. 59
75. Prior to the interview session in respect of each list of three candidates, the
Committee holds a briefing session during which a number of issues are discussed,
including the ‘position’ taken by the advisory Panel of international experts which has
had confidential consultations with States Parties prior to the transmission of the lists to
the Assembly. 60 Then each candidate is interviewed for 30 minutes, with the first five
minutes of the interview being allotted for a short self-presentation, if the candidate so
wishes. The candidate is informed of the possibility of making such a presentation by the
Secretary General of the Assembly in the letter convening him or her for interview.
Members (then) pose questions, in English or in French, and the candidate responds in
either or both languages: simultaneous interpretation is provided. The Chairperson
ensures that both questions and answers remain short so that as many issues as possible
58 This is a mathematical formula, named after a Belgian mathematician, which ensures that representation
is fairly distributed in proportion to the number of seats held in the Assembly as a whole. It requires the
number of seats for each political group to be divided successively by a series of divisors (1, 2, 3, 4), with
seats on committees allocated successively to political groups to secure the highest resulting quotient or
average.
59 The AS/Cdh may also propose to the Assembly, the rejection of lists: see paragraph 4 of the AS/Cdh’s
terms of reference, in Appendix 1, below at p. 272, and “Candidates for the European Court of Human
Rights”, Resolution 1366 (2004), as modified by Resolutions 1426 (2005), 1627 (2008) and 1841 (2011).
60 See Resolution CM/Res(2010)26, as amended, on the establishment of an Advisory Panel of Experts on
Candidates for Election as Judges to the ECHR. […] The views of the Panel– provided to the Committee
on a confidential basis – are “always giv[en] substantial weight when assessing the suitability of
candidates” by the Assembly’s [sub-] Committee (see Committee of Ministers (Ministers’ Deputies
decision, 1213 th meeting, 26 November 2014, item 1.5)