Association Internationale des Hautes Juridictions Administratives
International Association of Supreme Administrative Jurisdictions
Association Internationale des Hautes Juridictions Administratives
International Association of Supreme Administrative Jurisdictions
Ladies and Gentlemen, Presidents and Members of the High Administrative Courts,
Dear Colleagues,
Allow me first of all to express my gratitude, as well as that of the President of the Supreme Court of Spain, Isabel Perelló, for the trust you have placed in us by entrusting us with the presidency of our international association for the next three years.
It is a great honor for us to take on this high and stimulating responsibility. A heartfelt thank you to you all.
We will be delighted to host the next Congress in 2028 and hope to welcome you in Madrid.
I can assure you that you will be received with great enthusiasm, and that my colleagues from the Supreme Court, President Isabel Perelló, and I will be fully committed to continuing to deepen, for the benefit of all, the quality and effectiveness of administrative justice.
And, of course, we will make sure you can enjoy our country, its gastronomy, and our culture.
I would also like to express my special appreciation to the Supreme Court of Justice of Chile, its President Mr. Ricardo Blanco Herrera, Minister Adelita Ravanales, as well as all the colleagues and participants who made this successful Congress possible.
Your work and commitment during these days, and also beforehand in preparing the event, have been outstanding.
That is why, dear Chilean colleagues, I extend to you my sincere congratulations for your dedication and efforts.
You can be very proud of the extraordinary work you have accomplished.
Congratulations also to all the staff of our association for their invaluable work, and in particular to its Secretary General, Mrs. Martine de Boisdeffre. Dear Martine, thank you very much for your unwavering institutional commitment over the years to the high administrative courts, and thank you for passing on to us such a remarkable spirit of harmony and optimism.
Your enthusiasm and the rigor you have shown are now part of the legacy of this association.
More than 40 years have passed since the founding Congress of our International Association in December 1983.
Much has happened in the world since then, but the ideals that united us at that time remain relevant today.
Our association has grown to include 65 jurisdictions across all continents.
The mission of high courts is based on the fundamental values of law, freedom, human dignity, and justice, values that are essential to overcoming challenges and uncertainty. For this reason, we renew our commitment to these principles at every Congress.
Don Quixote told Sancho Panza that wanting to change the world is not utopia, nor madness—it is simply a matter of Justice.
And in this complex world, administrative justice must not fear change, if it means improvement and setting new horizons that benefit our citizens and the society of which we, as judges, are a part.
For this reason, in the years to come, it would be worthwhile to pay particular attention to how citizens perceive our work, which is always complex and sometimes misunderstood.
A former President of the Spanish Supreme Court, Javier Delgado, often said that Justice is not very photogenic. And for this reason, it is crucial to communicate well—to explain to the public in a clear and accessible way that the powers of high courts are not privileges for their members, nor personal attributes, but tools designed to safeguard freedoms and social peace.
If, in 1983, it made perfect sense to set up an international association to promote the exchange of ideas and experiences on how to interpret and apply the law by the administrative judge, today its existence is even more justified in a globalized world based on intelligent technology and the instantaneous communication of knowledge.
And we should take advantage of these circumstances for the benefit of all and, for this reason, we suggest to the General Assembly that the theme of the next Congress, which will be held in Madrid in 2028, could be around the topic of rationalising the functions of the high administrative jurisdictions.
To make the society understand that the administrative judges wish and must resolve the cases submitted to them quickly and efficiently, with a focus on excellence, we need the leadership of the high administrative jurisdictions, to which our association must contribute.
Addressing this debate will allow us to analyse the different working methodologies applicable to our task.
The possible application of selective or filtering criteria to the cases brought before our Courts and Councils of State would be particularly interesting.
The synergy created by streamlining would also allow time to be devoted to discussions on simplifying procedures—for example, through the use of procedural mechanisms to resolve multiple disputes simultaneously—or on the use of artificial intelligence techniques.
On the other hand, it is clear that one of the most important virtues of the administrative judge—besides patience and composure—is memory and intellectual ability.
To some extent, a judge is a knowledge worker. Therefore, we must never lose sight of the need for a true talent management strategy, which high courts should, in my view, actively promote through their work.
We must foster knowledge management, because having experience is not enough—we must learn from it and make use of it.
In this context, we encourage you to share information and experiences through our website in order to prepare our future meetings.
Logically, each high court operates according to the organisation of its procedural system.
Despite our differences, there are many more elements that unite us.
And to improve our work, we all count on the help and cooperation of our Association.
In the face of mistrust and misinformation, we should respond with the quality of our work, with legal excellence and with the effectiveness of our decisions.
Only in this way can we expect our citizens to evaluate the performance of our duties with rigour and criticism, without indulgence, but with an understanding of the complexity of our task.
At the same time, we will reinforce the achievements of the rule of law, which deserve to be preserved so that our societies can continue to advance.
We look forward to seeing you in Madrid in 2028.
Gracias por vuestra atención y por vuestra confianza.
Je vous remercie de votre attention et de votre confiance.
Thank you for your attention and your trust.
First of all, I would like to thank Mr. Roger Stevens, First Honorary President of the Council of State of Belgium, for his good wishes in this challenge I'm taking on as President of the Association. I would like to congratulate him on his work as President of the Association over the years 2019 to 2022 and share with you the honor I have of leading the organization of the next congress, which will take place in Santiago de Chile in 2025.
Since 2008, by agreement of the Plenary Assembly of our highest Court, the Supreme Court of Chile has been a member of the Association and, since 2013, a member of its Board. During the XIIIrd IASAJ Congress, the Supreme Court was chosen to host the XVth Congress in 2025.
As a Supreme Court, it's an honor to have been chosen as the venue, and we're already working to welcome the different courts and be able to bring this meeting to a successful conclusion.
To this end, we are planning to hold a three-day event in the city of Santiago de Chile, and have proposed as the main theme: "The relationship between state bodies and the administration of justice".
For our country, it is extremely important to share and gather the experiences of participating members, as we face the challenge of having a contentious administrative jurisdiction.
Likewise, it is an honor to welcome you to Chile and to show you the riches of our land. Chile, longest and thinnest country in the world, stretches between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean, approximately 4,300 kilometers from north to south. Its customs are as diverse as its landscapes, ranging from the world's most arid desert to thousand-year-old glaciers still waiting to be discovered. These cultural and climatic contrasts have shaped the identity of the country and its people. 17,574,003 people live in Chile: 8,972,014 women, 51.1% of the population, and 8,601,989 men, 48.9%.
Moreover, and continuing the methodology used at previous Association Congresses, we will be working on the basis of information provided by each country to gather their national experiences and realities on the subject that will bring us together.
Thus, the preliminary agenda for the first day will include an opening session, a presentation of the information given by the countries, followed by a series of thematic workshops. On the second day, we will continue with the workshops, followed by a meeting of the Board of the Association. On the third day, the conclusions of the workshops will be presented, and the General Assembly and closing ceremony will take place.
In addition, we will have tourist and recreational activities for the participants to show them a part of the national culture.
It will be an honor for the Supreme Court of Chile to host the next congress, and we look forward to welcoming each and every representative of the Association's member courts.
Yours sincerely,
Angela Vivanco Martínez
President of the Association from 2022 to 2025
Minister of the Supreme Court of Chile
It is with great pleasure that I accepted the invitation to start this new section and to share with you, "in a few words", my experiences as a former president of IASAJ.
It all began at the triennial congress held in Mexico City from 24 to 26 June 2019, during which the General Assembly honoured the Council of State of Belgium by entrusting it with the organization of the next congress in Brussels, thus implying that the Council of State would assume the presidency of the Association.
However, I had no idea what was in store for us...
Indeed, in the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic broke out.
The organization of the Congress is a long-term task that requires a lot of preparation: booking of congress rooms and hotel facilities, as well as the organization of cultural activities and many other things that need to be planned, prepared and settled well in advance…
The successive and erratic waves of the coronavirus pandemic have repeatedly been a source of despair both for the working group I had set up within the Belgian Council of State and for myself.
Many times the question was raised whether the congress could take place and whether it would not be wise to postpone the event or even cancel everything. Sometimes we really doubted whether we should take this risk.
The members of the team, who were preparing the event with great enthusiasm, also had to carry out their full-time duties at the Council of State in “corona mode".
However, the moral support and encouragement of the Secretariat General in Paris helped us to hold on.
The task was particularly difficult from an organizational point of view.
The choice of venue, catering and hotel facilities, cultural activities, etc., had to be made without knowing much about the number of participants; guarantee clauses covering the eventuality that the pandemic would prevent travel in 2022 had to be drawn up and negotiated.
Between the triennial congresses and the general assemblies, the statutes of the Association also require the organization of a board meeting, combined with a thematic seminar.
The Board and the thematic seminar were held on 28 and 29 September 2021 and were organized by the Council of State of Greece and the Secretariat General. The theme of the seminar was the ethics of the magistrates.
Fortunately, between two major waves of the pandemic, the event took place. Some participants attended “in person” and others attended by video conference.
I proposed the theme of the Congress during the Board meeting. Unfortunately, the obvious choice was: “the role of the supreme administrative jurisdictions during the coronavirus crisis”. Our association was the most appropriate place to share the rules, experiences and best practices of the world’s highest administrative courts during the pandemic. Therefore theme, as well as the venue and date of the Congress, were unanimously approved.
The participants of the thematic seminar and the Board also had the great honour of being received by our former colleague, Mrs Katerina Sakellaropoulou, President of the Hellenic Republic, in the beautiful gardens of the presidential palace.
All our attention was then devoted to the further organization of the congress, which was scheduled to take place in Brussels from 20 to 22 June 2022.
This involved, among other things, drafting questionnaires and processing the responses. The Auditor General and the Deputy Auditor General of the Council of State of Belgium provided invaluable support in this process. This enormous task was also carried out with the support and assistance of the team of the Secretary General, Mrs. Martine de Boisdeffre.
The choice of venue for the congress was the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels, thus allowing a unique combination of our scientific activities with the pleasure of art and culture, both secular and modern.
The choice and, finally, the booking of catering for lunches and coffee breaks during the congress as well as for dinners was not an easy task either.
For the accommodation of the many guests, we chose The Hotel, which offers superb views of the capital of Europe.
A high-quality cultural program was also planned for the participants and their spouses. One of the highlights was undoubtedly the private visit to the Royal Greenhouse in Laeken, which was prepared by several contacts with the King's office.
The European Commissioner, Mr. Didier Reynders, and the Minister of the Interior of Belgium, Mrs. Annelies Verlinden, accepted my invitation to give the opening and closing speeches of the scientific congress. Both underlined the important role that our institutions played, under extremely difficult circumstances, during the pandemic.
I think I can say that the congress was a success from a scientific point of view. In addition, the bonds of friendship between the institutions and their members were strengthened and new contacts were made.
Although it was not easy for a modest institution such as the Belgian Council of State to prepare and organize such a global event in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, I am pleased that I was able to carry out this task with the help of my team and the Secretariat of the Association. It was an intense and rewarding experience.
Once again, I would like to thank all those who contributed to the success of the Congress and the Presidency of the Council of State of Belgium.
At the end of the congress, the Supreme Court of Justice of Chile took over the presidency of the Association. The Supreme Court will organize the next congress in Santiago de Chile in 2025.
I would like to wish my Chilean colleagues every success in their presidency and in the organization of the next congress, and to wish AIHJA a long and fruitful future!
Roger Stevens
Honorary First President of the Council of State of Belgium
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