Legal > Organisation of the Permanent Court of International Justice

The Committee appointed M. Pilotti as Rapporteur. It also heard M. Hammarskjold,
Registrar of the Court.
With a view to carrying out its instructions, the Committee enquired into the essential
object of the revision of the Statute of the Court which the Protocol in question was designed
to achieve. In doing so, it noted that the revision was mainly intended to remove a certain
instability in the composition of the Court in three different ways — namely, (1) by the abolition
of the Deputy Judges, their place being taken by an equal number of Judges ; (2) by the
adoption of the principle of the permanent functioning of the Court ; and, (3) as a consequence
of the foregoing, by a stabilisation of the salaries of the Judges.
II.
1. The proposals for the revision of the Statute had as their starting-point the circumstance
that the composition of the Court in practice varies considerably at different times of the year.
The Judges sit regularly during the ordinary sessions, which are held in the summer, while
the Deputy Judges almost constantly replace certain Judges, particularly Judges coming
from overseas, during the extraordinary sessions convened in the winter.
By abolishing the Deputy Judges and raising the number of Judges from eleven to
fifteen (the number of Judges required to constitute the full Court remaining at eleven), the
revised Statute arranged for a constant composition of the Court except in the case of leave
or unavoidable absence.
The same result might, it seems, be obtained by applying Article 3 of the Statute of 1920
so as to increase the number of Judges from eleven to fifteen.
Article 25 of the 1920 Statute provides that the full Court is validly constituted if eleven
Judges are present. There is reason to hold that the proposed increase would not affect
this rule. Thus the practical effect of the increase would be to make it unnecessary, save
in entirely exceptional cases, to have recourse to the Deputy Judges, who are not affected
by the disabilities under which Article 16 of the Statute places the Judges.
As a remedy for the serious disadvantages inevitably arising from the presence on the
Bench of so large a number of Judges (fifteen), the revised Statute (Article 25) laid down that
the Rules of Court might provide for allowing one or more Judges, according to circumstances
and in rotation, to be dispensed from sitting.
A similar solution might be adopted under the terms of the present Statute. It would
be desirable to call the attention of the Court to the possibilities in regard to determining
the conditions and duration of the leave to be accorded to its members which are offered by
the power to regulate its procedure conferred on it by Article 30 of the 1920 Statute. If
applied in this manner, the Court’s power to regulate its procedure also enables it to take
account of the generally accepted principle that persons from distant countries are granted
long leave at regular intervals.
Finally, it should be pointed out that the Court has some Limes been prevented from
sitting owing to inability to secure the necessary quorum. The revised Statute avoided such
a contingency by laying down that Judges are bound to hold themselves permanently at the
disposal of the Court. The increase in the number of Judges would avoid this drawback so
far as is possible under the 1920 Statute.
2. As regards the permanent functioning of the Court, the Committee considered that
Article 23 of the 1920 Statute, according to which, unless otherwise provided by Rules of
Court, the annual session begins on June 15th, is capable of giving the Court itself a means
of largely achieving the object of Article 23 of the revised Statute, which laid down that the
Court shall remain permanently in session except during the judicial vacations.
Article 23 of the 1920 Statute in no way prevents the Court from itself adopting, by the
enactment of appropriate rules, the system of permanent sessions. The Assembly and the
Council might express a desire that the Court would incorporate this solution in its Rules
of Court. In any case, it would be perfectly permissible for the Court to bring the opening
of its annual session into relation with the system of annual leave for the Judges so as to
make the functioning of the Court possible during the whole period necessitated by the amount
of work to be performed.
3. The measures suggested above, with a view to stabilising the personnel of the Court
and ensuring its permanent functioning, necessarily involve a revision of the system of
remunerating the Judges. The salaries of Judges (apart from that of the President) consist
at present of three component parts : a fixed salary of 15,000 florins ; a salary varying
according to the number of days of duty (the maximum being 20,000 florins) ; and subsistence
allowance of 50 florins per day. This system was fully justified at a time when the work
which the members of the Court would be called upon to perform could not be foreseen, and
when there was reason to think that Judges would be able, subject to the rules regarding
their disabilities, to continue to fill official positions in their own countries.
On the other hand, the system is no longer justifiable at present. At its tenth session,
the Assembly expressed the opinion that the work of the Court would continue to increase
and, in point of fact, the Court’s work has become so heavy that the Judges are bound to
remain at The Hague for six to eight months every year, under circumstances which make
it impossible for members of the Court to continue to hold office in their own countries.