Serbia Justice Functional Review
External Performance Assessment > Access to Justice Services
e. Access to Allied Professional Services
- A vast array of professionals other than attorneys – including bailiffs, interpreters, expert witnesses, and mediators – support the delivery of justice. Access to information on these providers and the ability to retain them at a reasonable cost is needed to access the courts effectively. To ensure access to these professionals, litigants need to be able to identify them easily by geographic area and needed topic area (e.g., a Romanian speaker in a certain vicinity), understand likely fees, and) know if there are pending complaints against them.
- Information available on registries varies in quality and scope. The MOJ has created registries for most enforcement agents and expert witnesses582 and a registry of interpreters is included on the Association of Interpreter website as well as elsewhere. Interpreter and expert witness registries appear to be adequate to make a selection by specialty or language (see Matrix on Access to Allied Professional Services at Annex 5). However, it can be difficult to access fee information,583 and the process for registering a complaint against one of these professionals with an individual judge is not described online. The only mechanism to complain would be to approach the individual judge in the case.