Ms Vra Jourov?:

This is about people who have a residence permit in another member state. It is not those who have citizenship, but those who have a residence permit and the status which would enable them to cast their vote in European and municipal elections.

It may be a horrible simplification of our story of the Judiciary but what we hear from people is that they want to see a speedy, accessible and fair judicial system. As regards it being speedy, they want to see their case resolved relatively soon. I am not referring to criminal proceedings, although I should also perhaps speak about them because when a person is convicted, it is already a problem for the person and such proceedings should not last many years. In civil matters and family matters, people expect the Judiciary to be speedy and efficient. We have never pushed for extremely short deadlines because we understand that the speed of the litigation always reflects the complexity of the case. We are aware of that. As regards accessibility, I was surprised to learn from a survey I saw today that 80% of respondents stated that participating in civil law litigation is very costly and demanding, even for small and medium enterprises or people who are not very poor, as well as the middle class, perhaps. I did not see the details of that but 80% of respondents is a rather high figure. This is connected not only with official legal aid but also with fees, which we discussed today with the Minister. As I stated, it needs to be speedy, accessible and fair. The judicial system will never be fair to all; there will always be somebody who is unhappy. Objective fairness and trustworthiness has been built through decades in every member state. That is why it is such a fragile sector. If something is built up through several decades but there are then several cases involving corrupt judges or judges who make bad judgments which the people do not understand in terms of a general feeling of fairness, the trust will go down. Trust is key. We have data which show a correlation between low trust and easy attacks on the Judiciary from the side of politicians. It costs nothing to attack judges if society has low trust in them.

I do not know if I have addressed the Acting Chairman's questions. Of course, for the rule of law report next year we will again look into the development in Ireland of the respective things that he mentioned.