The Center for legal research and analysis on 12th November in Bitola promoted the policy papers that emerged from the first national implementation of the Judicial Indicator Matrix for reforms in the judiciary.
The documents were discussed among the judges and the representatives from the court administration from the basic courts of the Bitola appellate area.
Nikola Jovanovki, the program manager in CPIA presented the main findings from the JIM and indicated that among 60% of the judges consider that the amount of the judicial budget is not sufficient and that more than 40% of them think that the infrastructure is not adequate for the judicial work. He encouraged wide debate among the representatives regarding their perception and conclusion for the judicial performances.
The professor Gordana Lazetic, discussed the recommendations and conclusion for the five key areas for reform in the judiciary, namely the efficiency, transparency and accountability, the quality of judicial justice, independence and professional development of the judges. In that sense, the participants concluded that most burning issues for the judges is the overcoming of the workload which is conditioned with the lack of judges and court administration. It was also concluded that it is of crucial importance to improve the negative image the citizens have regarding the judiciary.
Through wide discussion, the judges elaborated the most important problems for them, as the lack of meaning for the complexity of cases, as well as the norm which as a fixed category causes problems for their work, as it is not adapted on the conditions and work in the court. The judges also indicated that as a challenge for their work is the system for evaluation for judges, the functioning of ACMIS as well as the question for criteria and qualification for electing judges in AJPP.
In the following period, CLRA will present the documents before the courts of each appellate area and high courts, after which it will prepare an improvement plan for implementation of the policies and practices. The plan will serve the Ministry of Justice and the Judicial Council for implementation and follow up of the Strategy for Reform in the justice sector 2017-2022.
The documents and their promotion are prepared with support of the British embassy of Skopje as part of the program “Enhancing the transparency, legal certainty and efficiency in the judiciary of North Macedonia”, implemented by the Center for Legal Research and Analysis.