Judges ' associations and trade unions: International standards and selected national practices

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to present international standards and their implementation in the national legislations in European countries regarding judges' right to association with special regard to judges' right to unionise. Authors hypothesise that although not strictly envisaged in any of the hard law sources, there is a plethora of soft-law instruments to assert this right. Consequently, the authors conclude that there is nothing in the relevant international standards that a priori prevents judges from unionising. Additionally, they posit that judges benefit from collective workers' rights generally linked to the trade unions through activities of judges' association , even in cases where judges are explicitly prohibited from joining and forming trade unions. The latter assertion is supported by a comparative overview of practices in selected European countries.

Keywords

• judges
• freedom of association
• trade unions
• judicial independence