Meetings of the Working group and working sub-groups for drafting National Judicial Reform Strategy along with the accompanying Action Plan for 2013 to 2018, January 24 - March 22, 2013

The Ministry of Justice and Public Administration (Ministry) established on January 3, 2013, a working group tasked to draft National Judicial Reform Strategy (Strategy). At the beginning of February, the Ministry formed five working sub-groups aimed to draft accompanying Action plan for the implementation of the Strategy (Action plan). Following the establishment of the Working group, as well as working sub-groups, a series of working meetings have been organised in the period January 24 until March 22, 2013. All meetings were attended by the members of the Working group, composed out of professors, judges, public prosecutors, lawyers, representatives of Judicial Academy, experts from the Ministry. Apart from the members of the Working group, the meetings have usually been attended also by international legal experts and practitioners from the Delegation of the European Union in Serbia, OSCE mission to Serbia, USAID, World Bank, GIZ, US Embassy. On the first working meeting, held on January 24, the initial data were presented by the Ministry and discussed by the participants. The participants discussed the five key principles of the Strategy: Independence, Impartiality and Quality of Justice, Competence, Accountability and Efficiency. The crucial outcome of this meeting was an agreement on these five key principles. During the second meeting, held on February 5, working sub-groups were established, and it was then agreed that the future activities concerning the Strategy and Action Plan will be carried out by the Working group and working sub-groups, where the proposed solutions shell be discussed in details. On the third meeting of the Working group, held on February 27, the members discussed on the results of the work of working sub-groups and its` reverse influence on the Strategy, as well as on the implementation of the Strategy and Action plan. Since the first working version of the Strategy was publicly presented on the internet site of the Ministry on March 4, the forth meeting of the Working group was dedicated to this first working version. This meeting took place on March 6. Given the fact that the first working version of the Strategy was made available for the comments of the interested citizens and institutions, but also that this document was the subject of the Public Discussion held on March 20, the working group had another meeting on March 22, where participants discussed proposed comments and suggestions for the improvement of the Strategy. Working group members participated in another four meetings and finalized their conclusions with regard to the above. Although the first working version was drafted in due time and it was widely discussed, the deadline for the adoption of the Strategy, along with the accompanying Action plan, is extended to June 2013, so the activities on the Strategy and the Action plan are to be continued in the period from April till June 2013.