On May 15 to 20, a delegation of Supreme Court of Cassation justices and advisors visited the Hague, the Netherlands, as participants of the 11th Regional IACA Conference (www.iaca2016.eu), as well as guest of a number of international and Dutch judicial institutions.
The delegation composed out of Justice Janko Lazarevic, Deputy President of the Supreme Courto of Cassation, Justice Vesna Popovic, Deputy Head of the SCC Case-Law Department, Justice Vesko Krstajic, Head of the Case-Law Registry of the SCC Criminal Department, Ms. Mirjana Puzovic, Head of Office of the President of the SCC, Ms. Ljupka Gogic, SCC Advisor on Normative Framework and Ms. Jasminka Buric, Registrar of the SCC Civil Department, had two focuses: case management improvements, in the light of backlog reduction and prevention; and access to court decisions, more precisely anonymization of documents made available to the public.
The Dutch experience was considered valuable, given their recent developments in case delay prevention. Also, the new developments of data protection legislation on the EU level has changed practices in publishing court documents online and otherwise.
This study visit was supported by the Multi-donor Trust Fund – Justice Sector Support (MDTF-JSS) project, run by the World Bank, as its approved support to the Supreme Court of Cassation in this area, but also as a response to the SCC wish to get exposed to recent Dutch experiences identified above.
In International Criminal Court the members of the delegation had an opportunity to learn about its case management system, improvements in its case-law database as well as its internal and external document database, exchange of documents between the stakeholders during the court proceedings, as well as the process of anonymization of court decisions.
The delegation met with the following Dutch institutions: Ministry of Security and Justice, Dutch Council for Judiciary, Appellate and District Court in The Hague. The members of the delegation were introduced to the latest legislative changes, in particular the Criminal Procedure Code, and steps to be taken in order to efficiently change and implement the amended legislation. The Council presented its current projects related to the digitalization of case files, and access to court decisions and documents. The members of the delegation were particularly interested to learn more on the process of judicial appointments and promotion, on the governance competences of the Council, on judicial accountability, but also on the case delay prevention measures as well as case law harmonization.
The discussions with Appellate and District court in The Hague were focused on case law harmonization, anonymization of court decisions and its publication and accessibility.
All discussions with Dutch interlocutors were interactive, dynamic, yet focused and up to the point, which contributed to the assessment of the study tour participants that this was one of the best tailored study visits they were part of, since it focused on the issues the SCC deals with as part of its primary competences.
Members of the SCC delegation took an active part in the 11th Regional IACA conference, also held in The Hague on May 18-20, 2016. Justice Lazarevic had a presentation on the effective use of data to assess and strengthen court performance in the complex environment of having three different case management systems in all Serbian courts; the SCC delegation also took part in discussion during presentations of Judge Sinisa Vazic on national vs. international war crime proceedings, and Judge Sonja Prostran on promotion of regional and global justice administration initiatives.
The conference was a great opportunity to exchange with colleagues who share the same legal history, hence the same contemporary challenges: HJPC staff and judges from Bosnia-Herzegovina, MOJ representatives from Croatia, legal professionals from Slovenia and Macedonia (FYROM).
The following initiatives and solutions made the greatest impression on the delegation during its stay in the Netherlands:
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All institutions and organizations in the justice sector in the Netherlands respectively coordinate its activities to achieve maximum efficiency, without interfering in each other’s competences.
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Dutch justice sector has a comprehensive approach in introducing all changes, regardless of thier type, for example: during the process of legislation drafting or amending, all institutions and representatives of court users (Bar, NGOs, etc.) are involved in impact assessment, the training for implementation of amendments is conducted simultaneously, as well as design and digitalization of templates to be used once amenments come into force. The process of amending Criminal Procedure Code, involving all these actions, will take three years.
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Dutch courts use unique centralized case management system, which enables to have one unique case law database, maintained by individual courts and Council; and to have cetralized overview of case processing, carried out by the Council. The system is transparent and visible to all users, thus judges and courts compete to achieve better results.
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The courts of the same instance regularly communicate in order to harmonize case law. The first decision on a certain new legal issue has to be shared with all courts of the same instance immediately upon rendering.
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There are no disciplinary measures for judges who don't handle cases efficiently. Instead, each judges' work is fully visible to other colleagues, which is a great motivation to improve performance. The courts manage their own human resources, not only staff, but also judges, which means that the courts appoint their own judges in an open competition thus choosing who they will work with.
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Dutch solutions regarding mediation are one of the most advanced in Europe, the court mediation is particularly developed, 40-45% of all civil cases are resolved in mediation immediately after law suit filing. Mediation was particularly encouraged and fostered because of the earlier problem with backloged cases.
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With respect to the access to court decisions and their anonymization, the Dutch and Serbian follow the same rules, driven by the EU aquis. Therefore, this delegation opened a chanell for direct communication with the Dutch Council for Judiciary to continue exchange on these issues in coming days, during the process of amending SCC Anonymization Act, which is under way.
All aspects of the visit were extremely useful for the members of the delegation. Some of the initiatives to which it was exposed could be introduced into domestic practices, without any legislative changes. Given that the SCC is currently in the process of amending its two crucial strategic documents: Unified Backlog Reduction Plan and Activity Plan for Case Law Harmonization, it will consider implementing some of the Dutch initiatives described above into them.