Category: Serbia

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Zaječar Commercial Court staff during their electronic filing training session with the Separation of Powers Program in April 2014.

The large number of old pending cases is a major challenge facing Serbia’s courts. Faster court proceedings and improved efficiency of the judicial system depend on several factors, most importantly good case management and communication. To help make this process easier, EWMI’s USAID-funded Separation of Powers Program (SPP) has introduced an innovative technique — electronic filing — a revolutionary service allowing courts and other parties involved to instantaneously and securely exchange documents via email.  

“The objective of this type of communication is to allow the parties to access the court more quickly and easily. Attorneys can communicate with the court at all times, on weekends or during the night, they don’t have to come to the court building and they don’t have to go to the post office,” explained Acting Court President of the Basic Court in Subotica, Rozalija Tumbas. 

E-filing offers not only increased efficiency, but also enormous cost savings for the courts and the affected parties. The speedy exchange of official documents leads to savings on printing and postage, and expedited communication reduces the length and cost of case proceedings. These are real, concrete improvements that can be measured in days and dinars. 

Additionally, the more timely sharing of information results in greater transparency. Attorneys in Basic Courts in Subotica and Užice and the Commercial Court in Zaječar have been able to easily verify information they have exchanged with the courts through the web portal. 

“When I was given this opportunity I was very excited about it and I wanted to start using it as soon as possible. I believe that my colleagues felt the same way; that’s why we started with the implementation very quickly,” Subotica attorney Nenad Vuletic explained. 

The three courts are part of the pilot project initiated by EWMI through SPP. During March and April this year, EWMI helped the courts re-organize their supporting services to allow legal, efficient, and secure electronic communication between courts and attorneys. To facilitate this change, the three courts signed a memorandum of cooperation with a small group of interested lawyers. These new solutions bring significant improvements and cost savings to both courts and attorneys. 

In cooperation with the Supreme Court of Cassation and the Ministry of Justice, EWMI legal staff reviewed the legal framework for electronic communication and developed procedural and technical guidelines for the exchange of documents and subpoenas via email. The transactions are authenticated by electronic signatures and secure time-stamps issued by the Serbian Post Office. 

The electronic exchanges of information should grow automatically, as more attorneys and courts come to understand the tremendous benefits. E-filing will reduce the cost of paper in the long run, and immediate access to documents via a computerized document management system will allow the court to process documents faster and reduce case disposition times. 

“I expect that an ever increasing number of attorneys and courts will switch to doing business this way,” said Brian LeDuc, SPP Chief of Party, during the launch of the new service. 

In addition to e-filing, Basic Courts in Subotica and Užice have cooperated extensively with EWMI. The two courts are among ten partner courts operating a very successful Backlog Reduction Program, which demonstrated the feasibility of the National Plan adopted by the Supreme Court this year.

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Six courts in Serbia have reduced their case backlogs from 23,000 to 12,000 old cases.

According to  the most recent statistics available (from late 2012), six courts in Serbia, working with EWMI’s Separation of Powers Program (SPP) funded by USAID, have reduced their case backlogs by 49%, from 23,000 to 12,000 old cases. The task ahead is to extend this success to other jurisdictions around the country.

The reduction of backlogged cases is important to Serbia’s hopes for EU integration, explains SPP project consultant Pim Albers, PhD, Advisor to the Dutch Ministry of Justice. Throughout the country, there are over 190,000 cases that have been pending for more than ten years in basic courts, and over 540,000 cases that have been pending for five to ten years. These backlogs violate the principle of a right to trial within a reasonable time, and must be reduced to bring Serbia up to European standards. 

These preliminary successes resulted from the courts’ adoption of reduction and prevention techniques outlined in SPP’s “Backlog Reduction and Prevention Best Practices Guide.” Building on the successes of SPP partner courts shown in the Guide, in July 2013, SPP presented a National Plan for Backlog Reduction that would reduce the number of backlogged cases by 80% over the next five years. The National Plan proposes that each court form a team that would organize and identify backlogged cases, investigate the cause of delay, and sort the cases accordingly, explains SPP Deputy Manager Milan Nikolić. Additional strategies are to reorganize the work in the court registry offices, engage employees more efficiently, and distribute a more equitable workload to all of the judges within a court. By implementing the National Strategy, Serbia will be able to reduce backlogs throughout the country, improve citizen trust and confidence in the judiciary, and facilitate Serbia’s entry into the EU. 

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Participants of the 2012 National Judges Conference.

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As part of its efforts to improve court administration, EWMI’s USAID-funded Separation of Powers Program (SPP), has been working closely with 10 Serbian courts– the Higher Courts in Belgrade, Novi Pazar, and Subotica, and the Basic Courts in Cacak, Nis, Sremska Mitrovica, Subotica, Uzice, Vranje, and Vrsac – to resolve cases quickly and efficiently, reduce the number of old cases, and prevent future processing delays. In July 2012, SPP published a handbook, USAID Best Practices Guide: Backlog Prevention & Reduction Measures for Courts in Serbia, detailing the most successful techniques and subsequent results achieved by the partner courts.

The guide is structured to facilitate improvements in other courts and was presented and distributed at the 2012 National Judges Conference held on October 8-10 in Zlatibor Mt Resort. As part of the Conference’s official program, SPP hosted two sessions, “Successful techniques for efficient trials,” for civil and criminal judges. Hosted and moderated by SPP, the sessions included presentations by six judges on how to successfully apply SPP recommended techniques that helped their courts effectively tackle backlogs and inflow of cases.

Welcoming the participants and guests at both sessions, SPP Chief of Party Patrick Wujcik presented the Separation of Powers Program and its activities of the past four years. He explained that SPP worked closely with 10 courts to improve court and case management, reduce backlogs and to improve case processing efficiency. After sharing international best practices and experiences with partner courts, Wujcik expressed SPP’s hope that the courts outside the Program will find the methodology presented in the Guide and discussions during the conference sessions useful in their daily efforts to reduce backlogs and increase efficiency in their courts.

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Training on the new software of budget and financial staff from 120 of Serbia’s 129 courts.

After receiving training on the new financial management software provided by EWMI’s USAID-funded Separation of Powers Program (SPP), budget and financial staff from Serbia’s courts agreed that the new system will make it much easier for courts to develop accurate budgets.

SPP provided the training to help court staff adapt to the new automated budget planning and management information system, or BPMIS, that will soon automate the budget processes of the High Court Council (HCC) and Serbia’s courts. Training on the new software was conducted July 11-15 in Belgrade, Novi Sad and Nis, and included staff from 120 of Serbia’s 129 courts.

The judicial system’s budget sets the framework for court operations and the delivery of justice. BPMIS supports this framework by providing a web-based, integrated budget formulation system to assist the HCC and courts in meeting all of their budget responsibilities, including budget planning, management, realization, oversight, and advocacy. It allows courts to quickly and consistently provide budget information to the HCC. In turn, it provides the HCC with a modern tool to analyze, consolidate, and submit the judiciary’s overall budget to the Ministry of Finance.

Helping bring financial independence to the Serbia’s judiciary is one of the main tasks of the SPP. By installing and training court staff in BPMIS, Serbia’s courts will become more autonomous, efficient and effective.

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The website is a vital tool in enhancing the principles of democratic, open and transparent governance.

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USAID Mission Director, Susan Fritz, and National Assembly Speaker Slavica Djukic-Dejanovic demonstrated the features of the new website at the launch event.

On 16 June 2011, the National Assembly of Serbia launched its new website. As the supreme representative body and holder of constitutional and legislative power in Serbia, the National Assembly strives for increased transparency and inclusive interaction with Serbian citizens. Developed with technical assistance from EWMI’s Separation of Power Program (SPP), the updated website will facilitate this openness with a comprehensive events and activities calendar, which includes plenary sessions and working group meetings; a searchable database of both drafted and enacted legislation text; as well as, information that addresses frequently asked questions about the Assembly, budgeting, law adoption, and election cycles.

Additionally, the new website provides comprehensive streaming news sources for both Serbian citizens and the international media. Through social networking with Facebook and Twitter; a searchable law database; and an automated newsletter, the new website directly impacts news quality and increased dialogue across networking mediums.

Echoing the impact of the new website, USAID Mission Director Susan Fritz stated at the launch event, “We truly hope the website will allow civil society and the public to play a greater role in determining what kind of country Serbia will be in the future.”

Visitors are welcome to view the new website at parlament.rs.

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Belgrade, Serbia

EWMI’s Separation of Power Program (SPP) in Serbia is active in supporting efforts to make the administration of justice in Serbia more efficient and responsive to the needs of the users of the courts. A core component of this work is to improve the professionalism of court management through the creation of a court administrator position. After extensive work during the last two years, the position has been created under the designation of “Court Manager.” In July 2010, Serbia got its first Court Manager. Mr. Zoran Aleksic was hired as the Court Manager of the Higher Court in Belgrade.

Mr. Aleksic has 10 years of managerial experience working as the Director of Joint Services in the Belgrade District Court. During 2009 and 2010 he distinguished himself as one of the most prominent members of SPP’s Working Group for Court Administration. In his new position, Mr. Aleksic will be responsible for the management of all financial and administrative aspects of the court’s work. The Higher Court in Belgrade is one of the largest and complex courts in Serbia. It occupies three different buildings, and includes the Special Departments for Organized Crime and War Crimes.

In consultation with SPP, the Ministry of Justice has approved court manager positions for 11 other large and important courts: all four Appellate Courts, the Higher Court of Nis, Basic Courts in Belgrade and Novi Sad, Commercial Appellate Court and Commercial Court in Nis, and the Higher Misdemeanor Court and Misdemeanor Court in Belgrade. Court managers will be appointed to these courts in late 2010 and early 2011. As these new managers are hired, SPP will assist efforts to enhance their professionalism by organizing trainings on court management in cooperation with the Judicial Academy.