Working Methods and Judicial Style

Abstract

The EFTA Court is a permanent European court that, since September of 1995, consists of three judges and six ad hoc judges. Ad hoc judges are called upon to sit if one of the regular judges is prevented from participating due to bias or illness. The Court’s experience with the ad hoc judges is a mixed one, because the governments do not pay enough attention to selecting them carefully. Having said that, I want to emphasise that some of the ad hoc judges were excellent. We don’t work with an AG. Since it only consists of three judges the Court always sits in plenum and all judges are involved. This results in some sort of “judicial nationalism”, even if this is not intended.