Compensation for judges\' overtime work - requirements for compliance with the EU acquis

Knežević Bojović Ana (Institut za uporedno pravo, Beograd), a.bojovic@iup.ac.rs

Judicial independence is one of the key facets of the rule of law; promoting the rule of law at the international and national levels is a goal of Target 16.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals. Financial independence of judges is one of the important guarantees of their independence. It is therefore unsurprising that compensation for judges’ work has been addressed in various international soft law instruments, where the standards formulated by European professional organisations of judges are of particular interest for all European countries. These standards, although formulated in soft law documents, are incorporated into the norms and practices of the European Union and its Member States and, by extension, are relevant for European Union candidate countries. This development is further underscored by the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union, which has first established a clear general obligation on the part of the European Union Member States to respect the independence of their national courts and has subsequently consistently held that judges’ compensation is an important element of their independence. Utilising the comparative and normative methods, the paper first outlines how the European standards of financial independence of judges are interpreted and applied in European Union law. Then, the author analyses in more detail the judgement of the Court of Justice of the European Union in case C‐272/24 HZ v Tribunalul Galați, where the issue of compensation for judges’ overtime work is discussed. Finally, the author highlights the potential implications of the aforementioned judgement for the legal system and practice in Serbia.

Keywords: judicial independence, European standards, European Union, Court of Justice of the European Union, material independence, compensation