Within the project “Joint Commitment for Better Achievements in the Judiciary” implemented by the Center for Legal Research and Analysis (CLRA) and the Institute for Human Rights (IHR) on June 11 in h. Aleksandar Palace in Skopje, a conference was held on the “Efficiency of the work of judges and court administration”.
The event was opened by the president of IHR – Margarita Nikolovska Caca, where she emphasized the importance of the project in terms of cooperation with the judicial administration in order to improve the efficiency, transparency and accountability of the judiciary.
The Minister of Justice Bojan Maricic was also present at the conference and highlighted the achievements and progress in the reforms of the judiciary in the Republic of North Macedonia in the latest international reports.
Together with them, the representative of CLRA, Aleksandar Godzo, referred to some of the project activities and explained the importance of implementing projects that focus on cooperation with the court administration. Godzo emphasized that as the “bloodstream” of the judiciary and the realization of citizens’ rights, reforms in the judicial administration must be completed as soon as possible in order to increase the performance of the judiciary as a whole.
The President of the Association of Judges, Djemali Saiti, thanked the holders of this project and the fruitful cooperation with the stakeholders because the couple judges-court administration is inseparable and key to successful cooperation.
In the welcoming address, the president of the Association of Court Administration, highlighted the current and future challenges in the judiciary, measures that should be taken and an approach to increased functionality and interoperability of the courts and other organs of the state administration.
In the first panel discussion, speakers Yugoslav Gjorgjievski and Judge Gjorgi Andonov, president of OS Shtip, presented part of the findings presented in the project publications.
Gjorgjievski explained the status of the court officials and the legal regulations by which it was regulated until the year 2000, and then he explained the new regulations ie. the law on civil servants. The court service is regulated for the first time in the legal system of R. Macedonia with the law on the judicial service, where the rights, status, duties and responsibilities of employees in the judicial administration were determined.
With this model, the judicial service resulted in higher achievements in terms of efficiency and solid results in operation.
Judge Andonov presented the results of the 2019 judicial administration survey, which was conducted on more than 2,500 court administration employees. In the second panel, the discussion was opened by Judge Lazar Nanev, president of OS Kavadarci. Judge Nanev gave his opinion regarding the announced reforms in the judiciary ie. the impact of IKT development on the efficiency of court administration. Hence, he explained the future measures that the Government and the Ministry of Justice are taking in order to implement a developed IKT system and increase the interoperability of the courts with the other organs of the state administration.
As the last speaker at the conference, Adis Hodzic, Senior Counselor at the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of BiH addressed himself.
In his presentation, he emphasized the importance of human resources as a key factor in the implementation of all policies to improve the work of the judiciary. Through comparative analysis and examples from the practice of the countries in the region and the EU countries at the same time, he explained the situations and steps that should be gradually implemented in order to successfully implement IKT and interoperability.
After the presentations at the panel discussions by the attendees, a fruitful debate took place in which opinions were expressed about the situation and the measures that should be taken by the practitioners, i.e. the employees of the court administration.
At this event, as well as the project itself, the focus was on court administration, with which the attendees emphasized their satisfaction and willingness for further cooperation on this project.
The event was moderated by Gorica Nadzinska from the Center for Legal Research and Analysis.
40 people were present at the event, where all measures and protocols for protection against COVID-19 were observed.
This project is financed by the European Union and co-financed by the British Embassy in Skopje.