Protecting judicial independence by strengthening public confidence in the judiciary

Protection of judicial independence has become a matter of great concern for the European legal space in recent years, and both European courts have intensively been addressing the topic in their judgments. Indeed, judicial independence lies at the very core of the rule of law, which is a cornerstone of both the Council of Europe and the EU, as Article 3 of the Statute of the CoE and Article 2 of the TEU make clear. At the same time – despite any recent claim to the contrary – the rule of law and judicial independence itself are an essential part of the shared constitutional identity of all the States that have freely adhered to these two international organisations. In my intervention I would like to share some thoughts drawing from my specific experience as a judge of a constitutional court – of course, subject to the caveat that I am going to say only reflects my personal opinions, and not necessarily those of my court. More specifically, I will focus on a particular aspect of the protection of judicial independence that has not been touched upon by the other distinguished speakers, namely the connections between judicial independence and public confidence in the judiciary.