Honourable Judges and registrars,

Dear participants,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure for me to welcome you today on behalf of Venice Commission at our workshop for registrars of the courts members of the Southern African Judges Commission. Let me first, thank the Constitutional Court of South Africa for the excellent organisation of this event.

Not all of you will know about the Venice Commission and its close link to the Southern African Judges Commission. Let me therefore present to you the Venice Commission and our programme of co-operation with the SAJC.

The Venice Commission is an independent advisory body of the Council of Europe, which is an international organisation dealing mainly with democracy, the  protection of human rights and the rule of law. The Council of Europe is distinct from the European Union and covers nearly all states of Europe including Russia and Turkey. Upon request by its member states and the organs of the Council of Europe, its Venice Commission gives opinions in the constitutional field in the large sense, including for example opinions on legislation on court organisation or on electoral issues. Since its creation, the Venice Commission supported constitutional courts and supreme courts with constitutional jurisdiction as a means to promote the implementation of constitutional values and constitutionalism in general. As a so-called enlarged agreement, the Commission             also counts non-European states – for example Chile, South Korea or Morocco – as its full members, in addition to a number of observers including South Africa with a special co-operation status.

But going even further than the geographical scope of its members and observers, the Commission co-operates with regional bodies uniting constitutional and supreme courts, like the Association of Francophone Constitutional Courts, many of which are located in West and Central Africa, the Union of Arab Constitutional Courts and Councils as well as similar bodies in Asia and Latin America. The relationship with the Southern African Judges Commission is however a special one and particularly close to our heart. This is so because after having developed out of a bilateral relationship with the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the Venice Commission is proud of having been instrumental in the very creation of the Southern African Judges Commission by assisting in the organisation of the regular meetings of the Chief Justices of your region. During the last decade, we been able to draw upon the support in this endeavour of the Governments of Switzerland, Italy, Norway and now Ireland.

In addition to the SAJC meetings and conferences, we invite your courts to contribute summaries of your important case-law – present and past – to our database CODICES, which is available on-line and via CD-ROM. I will have occasion to present you the database during our workshop. Finally we have set up a confidential internet based discussion forum, the ‘Venice Forum’, which allows the courts to inform each other about recent judgements, appointments of presidents and judges and even to seek the opinion of peers on issues pending before the court. These tools are available to all the regional partners, which I mentioned and allow them to exchange not only within their own region but also with courts in other continents.

In early 2009, we will co-organise with the Constitutional Court of South Africa the first World Conference on Constitutional Justice in Cape Town, where we will bring together all our partner courts, this time not only in an internet forum but face to face. We do hope that your courts will be represented at this conference. Already now, I ask you to kindly excuse me this afternoon because I have to participate in discussions on the organisation of this Conference with the Constitutional Court of South Africa.

During these three days, our task will be to exchange on the role and functions of the registrars. The South African Judiciary kindly hosting us here will inform us about their work in various sectors of the judiciary. In addition, we are most keen to learn from all of you about your work and hope to take inspiration from good practices that exist in the various courts of the Southern African region.

The registrars are always the backbone of the judiciary. Of course, the judges are there to render their decisions but justice cannot work without an functioning apparatus behind, which is in charge of handling cases and organising the day to day work of the court. I suppose you functions vary, some of you for example may also be in charge of relations with the public, some deal with budgetary issues. All these elements are of interest and we hope that we can take inspiration from each other.

Our workshop in Johannesburg is not the first of its type. A year ago,  we organised a similar workshop in Dublin, where the Irish Judiciary presented its practice in running the functions of registrars on various levels of court. Some of you have been in Dublin and we would like to build upon the work done there. Whenever appropriate, please refer to the results of your discussions there.

As you can see, our workshop is not intended as a one off shot, the Venice Commission is aware that much can be gained by an exchange between the registrars or secretaries general.

We have already approached the Irish Government for the financing of a follow up project, which should allow us to bring together not only the chief justices but also the registrars.

I wish to all of us a fruitful work here in Birchwood.