In his speech, Mr. Rudolf R. Winter, coordinating senior vice president of
het College van Beroep voor het bedrijfsleven (The Administrative High Court for
Trade and Industry) started to emphasize that the three pillar structure of (the
Dutch) Eurinfra (the application of EU law by means of information accession
technology, education and network) has stood the test of time as such. It is the
content of the different pillars that is changing. Improvement of the technology
in the first pillar concerning the approachability of information has redefined
and still redefines the relation with the educational aspects of the second
pillar and the functioning of networks of CCE's in the third pillar.
Judges
and their staff should have all the relevant information at their disposal in a
state of the art manner, by means of apps and mobile websites. The general part
of the Union Law could be an area of law to start with this modern, state of the
art, approach. E-learning in the second pillar, can, so he stated, be considered
as a natural complement of the advantaged technology to gather information in
the first pillar.
Winter underlined that the situation should be avoided that Member States
will start to develop their own technology and their own digital structure. That
would be a waste of energy and financial resources. This could be avoided,
Winter concluded, by more interconnection between the Member States in EU-law
management as well. Lectures and presentations concerning EU-law could be saved
and made re-usable by voice-overs and/or subtitles for judiciaries in other
Member States.
Realising an interconnection between national networks of CCE's would mean
creating an EU law rapid deployment force. Member States should work together to
create a (digital) environment in which knowledgemanagement, Union wide,
contributes strongly to bring fast and good justice to the persons seeking it.
When judges in their daily practice could easily have contact (for instance
via a safe and secure social medium), they could contribute in that way to more
unity in applying European Law, without putting an extra burden on the shoulders
of the Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
Finally, Winter brought forward, that on the European level, as far as it
European law knowledgemanagement concerns, a pivoting point is missing. A
pivoting point that coordinates the different activities of the stakeholders
within and between these pillars of knowledgemanagement. What actually is
needed, is an outline for an operational master plan concerning European law
knowledgemanagement. This coordinative pivoting point, maybe temporary and maybe
operating as a small network, could contribute to the making of such a plan, in
which should be made a clear distinction between the accessibility of
respectively information, education and networks while taking into account what
the role and function of technology could be in these respects.