ANALYSIS OF THE SHORTCOMINGS OF THE REGULATORY FRAMEWORK GOVERNING THE WORK OF THE JUDICIARY

In the first meeting of the Working Group on the issues of normative delineation of budgets between judicial councils and the Ministry of Justice, held today at the Ministry of Justice, it was found that Serbia lacks the methodology for preparation of, execution of and reporting on the budget resources, which is based on judiciary performance. It was agreed that the Project, in cooperation with the Council, the Ministry of Justice and court representatives, should design a new program budget methodology for court budgeting, which will be based on programme planning of performance of the courts.

Therefore, in preparing this program budget methodology the Project conducted an expert analysis of the shortcomings of the existing normative framework, which is relevant to financing courts in Serbia. An analysis of ten laws relevant to the work of courts was performed and recommendations were made for the regulatory framework amendment and harmonisation laid out in the document “Recommendations for the harmonisation of the regulatory framework – amendments to legislation governing functioning of the courts”.

The Serbian judiciary is obliged to harmonise its work with international standards and laws which apply in countries with more developed court systems; these standards are designed and their implementation monitored by the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ), which among other things deals with the application of mechanisms for resolving court cases within optimal and planned time frames.

The Project offers support to judicial institutions in the implementation of greater judicial efficiency and through activities related to the writing up of the new budgeting methodology, including recommendations for the improvement of the existing normative framework, i.e. managing cases in courts, weighting of cases and aspects of human resources management linked with budgeting.