Horizontal Cooperation between National Courts in the EU: An Empirical Study

Abstract

This article focuses on the current state of horizontal judicial cooperation and provides an overall image of the working model of different professional judicial and legal associations and networks. Furthermore it touches on two distinct phenomena of jurisprudential judicial cooperation, namely participation on European law development and judicial use of other Member States courts’ case law, and tries to connect these aspects to the practical matters of judicial cooperation through the concept of mutual trust and judicial participation in the European integration. To look at given problems from the perspective of an independent observer, embodied by a judge at a lower level of judiciary structure who is not affiliated to any of the professional associations, can reflect the stalemate at which current horizontal judicial cooperation could freeze if professional judicial associations do not look to the vast possibilities that innovations in information and communication technology can offer. By taking this perspective I point out that improvement in external and internal communication of the associations and the creation of elaborated databases can render the position of professional networks stronger and more effective and foster jurisprudential judicial cooperation which has been until now pushed aside in the reinforcement of the area of freedom, security and justice.