Televic’s uniCOS tabletop units facilitate plenary deliberation sessions in the General Court of the European Union

The General  Court of  the European Union is one of the 2 jurisdictions composing the European Court Of Justice. This Court is the supreme court of the European Union in matters of European Union law. It is tasked with interpreting EU law and ensuring its uniform application across all EU member states under Article 263 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union. The Court was established in 1952 and is based in Luxembourg.

New deliberation room for plenary sessions of the General Court

Due to the constant increasing of the cases introduced before the General Court, an important reform has led to an increasing of the number of Judges between 2017 and 2019. They are now 2 per member state so 54 in total for this jurisdiction. In order to be able to welcome such a number of participant for the plenary sessions, the deliberation room had to be renewed and a new table was designed. In need of a conferencing solution to meet the specific needs of the General Court and of the room, the institution chose to equip the deliberation room with Televic uniCOS multimedia tabletop units – one for every judge.

Architectural constraints

The prestigious architecture of the new deliberation room presented the Court’s multimedia team with several specific constraints related to the choice of conferencing system. For instance, the integrity of the furniture needed to be preserved, and there was no possibility to mount cameras or screens on the walls. Televic’s tabletop units presented an ideal solution, as they bring audio, video, document sharing and voting right in front of every member of the Court.

Need for ultimate confidentiality

Another important constraint was the extreme level of confidentiality of the plenary court sessions. This meant that the entire conferencing system needed to be easily manageable by the court members and clerks themselves, as no technical operators can be allowed in the room. In close collaboration with the Court’s multimedia team, Televic developed a customized version of the system API, allowing the team to program an adapted interface.

Best-in-class audio quality

For complex and often long meetings in a large room, the audio quality obviously needed to be truly best-in-class to avoid any kind of misunderstanding or unnecessary strain on the judges. The Court’s multimedia team was pleased to receive praise from the court members on the audio quality of the new Televic system.