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Calendar Updated: September 15, 2017
MDTF Activities > THE COURT PRESIDENTS CONVENE TO DISCUSS COURT PERFORMANCE RELATED ISSUES: PROTECTION OF THE RIGHT TO A TRIAL WITHIN REASONABLE TIME AND TOOLS TO REDUCE CASE DELAYS - Belgrade August 29, 2017

THE COURT PRESIDENTS CONVENE TO DISCUSS COURT PERFORMANCE RELATED ISSUES: PROTECTION OF THE RIGHT TO A TRIAL WITHIN REASONABLE TIME AND TOOLS TO REDUCE CASE DELAYS - Belgrade August 29, 2017

The Supreme Court of Cassation, in cooperation with the Office of the Council of Europe, EUD and MDTF-JSS, organized a meeting with presidents of all courts in Serbia on August 29, 2017 in the Palace of Serbia in Belgrade.

In his introductory remarks, the president of the Supreme Court of Cassation, Dragomir Milojević, pointed out that many controversial issues that courts in Serbia are facing are "elaborated" in examples of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. "The internationalization of internal disputes can be prevented by respecting European standards in practice before domestic courts," said the president of the Supreme Court of Cassation.

The President of the Supreme Court of Cassation presented the Reporton the Work of the Courts for the period January-June 2017, focusing onthe implementation of the Amended Unified Backlog Reduction Program.

He noted that although the overall positive trend of reducing backlogs is maintained on the level of entire court system, some warning indicators emerged during the first half of 2017: higher courts received much more cases than in the first half of 2016 and it is predicted that this number will even higher by the end of the year; in the first half of 2016 all higher courts received 75,950 cases, and in the same period this year they received 101,997 cases, or 26,047 cases more. Further analysis of the reasons causing this increase is to follow.

Also, the President of the SCC noted that the number of the oldest cases – pending for more than 10 years, is slightly increasing in first instance courts, with no indication of objective reasons for this. President Milojevic encouraged court presidents of second instance courts to create BLR teams which would perform oversight of first instance courts of their jurisdiction in applying measures reduce the number of oldest cases.

President Milojevic pointed to the importance of mediation as an alternative way of resolving disputes in order to reduce the number of cases in the courts and urged the courts to apply ADR tools reminding them that the Supreme Court of Cassation, the High Judicial Council and the Ministry of Justice issued an Instruction for the improvement of mediation in the Republic of Serbia.

The 2017 semi-annual report follows the methodology used by the SCC in 2016 Annual Report, which the Supreme Court introduced with MDTF-JSS assistance.