From 29 September until the 1st of October, at the hotel Izgrev in Struga, the Center for legal research and analysis held a two day workshop on the subject “Drafting Guidelines for usage of court practice by the Supreme Court of Macedonia”.
This event is part of the component regrading court practice, at the programme “Improving Quality of Justice in Macedonia through Capacity Building for Judges and Monitoring Judicial System Performance” financed by the British Embassy Skopje.
The Justices from the Supreme Court together with the legal associates participated at the workshop that was moderated by Judge Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska, Macedonian judge at the European Court of Human Rights.
The workshop was opened by Zarko Hadzi-Zafriov, Senior programme manager at the Center. He presented the programme, explained that the goal of the workshop is for the Supreme Court to provide conclusions for guidelines for usage of court practice and how to disseminate it to the lower courts and underlined that the courts and judges are already obliged to follow the practice of the European Court of Human Rights by few laws. Chief Justice Lidija Nedelkova pointed out that the purpose of the workshop is for the justices and legal associates to actively discus on this subject in an unformal way and to provide conclusions that will lead to a stronger court practice system. Judge Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska expressed gratitude for the participation at the event at noted that constructing a data base for court practice is of a primary importance for the functioning of the system for court practice.
At the first working day, Jelena Ristik, an attorney from Skopje presented her analysis on relevant provisions within the positive legislation on application of the court practice in Macedonia, prepared for the needs of the Center, and Justice Lidija Taseva, head of the department for court practice at the Supreme Court at the Republic of Macedonia presented the process of systematization of the court practice at the Supreme Court. Judge Lazarova Trajkovska explained the methodology for usage of court practice of the European Court of Human Rights. Afterwards an active discussion on the subject Regulation of the court practice of the Supreme Court followed that was led by the Chief Justice Lidija Nedelkova.
On the second working day, the participants presented their ideas that resulted in conclusions on how to use the court practice in the everyday work of the judges. At the end of the workshop, the experts and participants concluded that in the following period a team of experts managed by the Center for Legal Research and Analysis will provide support to the Supreme Court in the drafting of the guidelines for usage of court practice that will strengthen the ongoing process of uniform application of the law by the Supreme Court.