The focus of the presentation is on “ensuring independence and impartiality of justice in South East Europe”. The presentation is structured so that it reflects the main topics proposed by the organizers of the First Central and East European Rule of Law Symposium for the panel discussion on ″Efficiency of Justice in the CEE region”. Therefore, the presentation first, tries to identify challenges to ensuring independence and impartiality of justice (as well as the challenges to fair and rapid delivery of justice); second, to define roles and means, but also challenges of interaction between governmental and nongovernmental stakeholders regarding the ensurance of judicial independence and impartiality, and third, describes a success story of the Rule of Law Program South East Europe, and some lessons learned.