About Us
The Judges' Forum of Serbia is a non-governmental, non-profit professional association, founded on August 2, 2015, with the aim of strengthening the integrity and independence of judges, promoting the judicial function, enhancing the reputation of the courts, improving the material status of judges, and fostering professional development and cooperation.
An independent, professional, and accountable judiciary is the goal toward which the Judges' Forum of Serbia strives, in order to ensure that the citizens of the Republic of Serbia are provided with protection of their rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution, laws, and international standards. An independent, efficient, and accountable judiciary must be the goal of everyone, not only judges, as this is the only way to achieve equality of citizens before the law, legal certainty, and legal predictability. The right to an independent court is the right of every citizen, guaranteed by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Only an independent, efficient, and accountable judiciary can restore citizens’ trust.
It is necessary to establish and apply clear, objective, and measurable criteria in the selection, promotion, and accountability not only of judges, but of all employees in the judiciary – judicial assistants and administrative staff as well.
Promotion and rewards must be based exclusively on work results and merit, both for judges and other court employees. It is essential to appoint a sufficient number of judges and to provide courts with an adequate number of properly trained judicial assistants and administrative staff.
In addition to ensuring adequate working conditions for judges, it is necessary to relieve judges of unnecessary administrative work and enable them to devote most of their working time to trial preparation, monitoring legislation, and following case law. The expertise of judges ensures their independence and efficiency in their work, and it is therefore necessary to develop high-quality continuous training for judges based on real needs.
At this moment, we would like to draw your attention to the following activities:
Click on the activity title to learn more.
In the previous period, our activities were focused on issues of judicial efficiency and increasing the professional competence of judges. We proposed amendments to the Civil Procedure Act, the Court Rules of Procedure, and the Enforcement and Security Act.
With the support of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Belgrade, we prepared a Handbook for the Application of the Civil Procedure Act, intended primarily for young judges and those without experience in handling this area of law.
With regard to harmonizing judicial practice, we identified problems in the application of provisions of the Civil Procedure Act relating to the method of calculating litigation costs. We organized round tables at the seats of appellate courts, where presidents of judicial panels had the opportunity to consider all disputed issues related to litigation costs.
We succeeded in correcting an injustice done to young trainee colleagues who had not received compensation from the National Employment Service during their traineeship in court. At our initiative, they too were enabled to receive compensation from the National Employment Service during their volunteer traineeship in court.
The Ministry of Justice accepted our initiative, and amendments to the Court Rules of Procedure were adopted in June 2019. These amendments made it possible, in cases where case files are submitted to a second-instance court for deciding on a legal remedy against decisions that do not conclude proceedings, for first-instance proceedings to continue through the creation of auxiliary files. In this way, proceedings may be shortened by six months to one year.
We began implementing a project supported by the USAID Rule of Law Project concerning the analysis of small claims disputes. Our intention is to thoroughly analyze this type of dispute, determine whether legislative amendments are necessary, or whether it is sufficient to change procedural practice so that these disputes may be resolved more quickly.
Also, at the beginning of the year, the “Open Doors of Justice” project, supported by USAID, was launched. The project is led by YUCOM, and project partners include the Association of Prosecutors and the Judges Association of Serbia. We hope that the Judges' Forum of Serbia will contribute to the success of this project and help bring the judiciary closer to the citizens of Serbia.
In addition to the above activities, we took part in the public debate concerning the proposed constitutional reforms. From the very beginning, we took the position that members of the High Judicial Council coming from the ranks of judges must constitute its majority. In addition to this issue, the emphasis in our comments and public appearances was placed on criteria and standards for the selection, promotion, and accountability of judges. The selection and promotion of judges must be based exclusively on merit – professional experience and work results.