Revista da EMERJ - V. 21 - N. 2 - Maio/Agosto - 2019

11  R. EMERJ, Rio de Janeiro, v. 21, n. 2, p. 11-39, Maio-Agosto, 2019  European Minimum Standards for Courts: Independence, Specialization, Efficiency – A Glance from Italy Remo Caponi Università di Firenze I. Overview The organisers of the Regensburg conference entrust me with the task of giving an overview of judicial independence, court specialization and efficiency in the Italian legal system, with a view to contributing to the debate on common European minimum standards for courts. 1 According to this proposal, the following items will be covered. First of all, I will examine efficiency, namely: (a)drafting a principle of efficiency of civil procedure, fit to capture the structure and purpose of judicial systems, with a view to proposing a draft principle as a contribu- tion to the discussion about common European minimum standards; (b) assessing the regulative impact that the principle of efficiency could have on certain problems and trends, in particular the current situation of the Italian Supreme Court and its task of ensuring the uniform application of law. Turning to judicial independence, attention will be focused on the institutional and procedural devices designed to ensure judicial inde- pendence in the Italian legal system, with a view to assessing, in a subse- quent article, relationships and tensions between judicial independence and the use of tools for improving the performance of judicial systems (e.g. performance targets). Finally, the topic of court specialization will be examined. By contrast, a detailed treatment of the achievement of these standards insofar as they obtain to Italian ADR bodies will remain for another day. 1 C. Althammer , Mindeststandards im Zivilprozess, ZZP 126 (2013), p. 3 ff.; M. Weller, C. Althammer (Hrsg.), Mindeststan- dards im Europäischen Zivilprozessrecht, Mohr Siebeck, 2015.