Continuing its work in Serbia to improve court administration, EWMI’s Separation of Powers Program (SPP) organized a two day workshop in Belgrade, November 14-15, for six advanced SPP partner courts. The workshop was facilitated by the Dutch court expert, Pim Albers, who also worked on the SPP Best Practices Guide on backlog prevention and reduction. Around 25 staff members from SPP partner courts, including acting court presidents, judges and court staff took part in the two day intensive work shop on strategic planning aimed at helping the select courts create their own strategic plans, by setting up their goals, priorities, tasks and activities.

By the end of the workshop, the courts were able develop their own Strategic Plans for the next three years which they intend to adopt by the end of this year or early in 2013. SPP is funded by USAID, and is designed to help Serbia move closer to EU accession by strengthening the division of power and authority more equably among Serbia’s three branches of government. The strategic planning workshop is part of EWMI’s efforts to assist the Serbian judiciary in making the administration of justice more efficient, and responsive to the needs of users.