From Transnational Principles to European Rules of Civil Procedure: Evidence, Provisional Measures and Service of Documents (7 September 2017)

At the panel devoted to the joint ELI-UNIDROIT (International Institute for the Unification of Private Law) Project on civil procedure, Co-Chaired by two of the Steering Committee Members, Professor Anna Veneziano, Secretary-General ad interim of the UNIDROIT, and Diana Wallis, then President of the ELI, the speakers presented and discussed the first consolidated draft of the European rules on civil procedure, which covers the topics of evidence, provisional measures, and service of documents.

The first panellist Xandra Kramer, Professor at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, who is a Co-Reporter of the horizontal Working Group on Structure, explained how the group achieved the results of the consolidation of drafts submitted by the three respective Working Groups.

A Member of the Steering Committee and the Structure Working Group, Rolf Stürner, Professor at the Albert-Ludwigs University Freiburg, underlined that the current version of the draft is still a work-in-progress and that the Project is carried out by the highly qualified experts with diverse backgrounds.

John Sorabji, Principal Legal Adviser to the Lord Chief Justice and Master of the Rolls and a Member of the Steering Committee and the Structure Working Group, was the next speaker of this panel. He addressed the scope of the rules and explained that different types of claims should be taken into account at all stages of the drafting process.

Matthias Storme, Professor at the University KU Leuven, who was invited to the panel as a discussant and who is Chair of the ELI Members Consultative Committee, provided valuable remarks concerning language and further explained that in some cases, identifying one official language of the proceedings might be a challenge. He also raised other important questions pertaining to the issues of burden of proof and illegally obtained evidence.