Leadership - Mission and objectives

Leadership

The leadership of the research programme is in the hands of three professors (programme leaders) who belong to respectively the Utrecht, Leuven and Maastricht law faculties (Jongbloed, Van Orshoven and Van Rhee). They have the task of initiating research and monitoring the quality of the research that is carried in the context of the programme. For this purpose and to ensure that the further activities that take place within the programme are steered in the right direction, they regularly consult with each other, in meetings, by email communications, or when they meet at the public defences of doctoral dissertations, conferences etc. They also meet at the Research School's annual conference. During these meetings, each programme leader accounts for the contribution to the programme from his own faculty. Furthermore, the programme leaders are jointly responsible for external contributions, i.e. contributions from outside the participating faculties.

The three programme leaders are responsible for the internal communication within the programme, each programme leader being responsible for the directing the researchers participating in the programme from his own institution. They are held to account for this in the programme leader's meeting.

The group's research is distributed externally through the publication of research in (inter)national journals and (inter)national series. Further dissemination of research occurs through the organization of international conferences.

Mission and objectives

On both the global scale, as well as within Europe, in particular within the European Union, there is a growing interest in a certain degree of approximation or harmonization of civil procedure. Irrespective of when exactly or from whom formal decisions on this point can be expected, the time has come to support and promote this process of approximation and harmonization of civil procedure through fundamental and systematic research. In doing this, the programme is in keeping with the general mission of the Research School, namely to study the possibility and contours of a European Ius Commune.

The research programme focuses on the foundations and principles of civil procedure in Europe. This title differs to some degree from the programme's original title. This does not so much reflect a substantive change, but rather a more accurate reflection of the programme's content. Although the programme is, in the first place, geographically restricted to the member states of the European Union, a rigid, watertight boundary is not intended. Rather it indicates the intention, for the time being, to align itself with concrete, already existing developments. To the extant that it is relevant for European developments, developments outside the European context will be taken into account. In addition, to the extent that it is relevant, and incidentally, attention will be given to developments in procedural law beyond the civil procedure, for instance in the area of administrative procedural law. In this way, comparison between the different kinds of procedural law that can be identified in a particular country is facilitated. The research group is consequently very pleased that Ms. S. Lust (Leuven) has been found willing to participate in this programme.

The choice has fallen on researching the foundations and principles of civil procedure because for the approximation and harmonization of procedural law, attention must first be given to the underlying philosophy of the components of procedural law in different member states. The particular details should not obscure the main issues.

This raises the following question. What should be understood in this context by 'foundations and principles'? According to the research group, it is better not to look for an all-encompassing working definition in advance. Instead, the research should focus on issues that are relevant for all, or the majority of, jurisdictions in the European Union. The aim of the research (and with it also this research group's mission) is to reveal basic models that are useful for approximation/harmonization. The comparative legal research, based on traditional comparative law methods, focuses on identifying and analyzing common or related doctrines in the procedural laws of the member states of the European Union, and revealing and pinpointing common developments in these procedural laws (for example, the strengthening of the role of the judge in the civil procedure). It is also possible to think of research into the identifying common organizational or practical characteristics of the different European systems of civil procedure that form the basis for the topical problems such as judicial 'backlogs', the high costs of litigation and the difficult position of the 'substantive truth' in the civil suit. Case studies that focus on only one jurisdiction should not to be immediately excluded from this research because the existence of these types of studies makes comparative research possible. This type of study can furthermore provide a basis for future comparative projects.

The programme concentrates on contemporary and expected future developments with respect to the approximation or harmonization of the law of civil procedure. Notwithstanding this, there is also room for historical research. It is true that a programme titled 'Foundations of Private law' fortunately already exists in the Research School. Within the context of that programme, among other things, research is conducted into the history of civil procedure in different European countries. That being said, there is also a need in the Civil Procedure programme outlined her for such supplementary research (this is probably more the case for civil procedure than in other areas of law since attempts at revision have been undertaken in the past, which attempts have foundered, and new proposals for revision can be viewed in that light). The historical limb of this programme concentrates on gathering information on the background of existing procedural law rules as well as explaining current differences between procedural law systems in Europe. Consequently, research into the historical roots of civil procedure will also take place within this programme. This research will undoubtedly be linked to and benefit from the research that has been or will be conducted in the Foundations programme.