By Raphaël MORENON
28 March 2025
While awaiting a court decision, time can seem to stretch out indefinitely. This feeling is echoed in the famous quotation from La Bruyère: «The duty of judges is to render justice, their profession, to defer it». Yet the quality of justice is measured not only by the soundness of its decisions, but also by its ability to deliver them within an acceptable timeframe. The right to be tried within a reasonable time is one of the fundamental guarantees of our judicial system. This requirement, enshrined at both European and national level, is designed to prevent litigants from remaining too long in legal uncertainty. Article 6§1 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) states that «everyone is entitled to a hearing [...] within a reasonable time». This principle has been incorporated into our domestic law, in particular...
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