European minimum requirements for the personal independence of judges: salary, transfer, demotion, early retirement

Abstract

Judicial independence and impartiality have been developed through numerous international soft law rules, as well as abundant case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Recently attention has been particularly focused on the cases of Hungary and Poland, but they are by no means the only ones to be taken into account, as other EU countries also have dysfunctions that fully affect independence and impartiality, with the case of Spain increasingly standing out. This paper analyses some of these dysfunctions, ultimately focusing on salary, transfer, demotion and early retirement.