The key elements of the reform of the court system, which are part of the Judicial Reform Strategy, are elaborated in a CARDS 2002 twinning project supporting a more efficient and modern court system. The EUR4 million project is financed by the European Union and implemented by the Croatian and Finnish justice ministries.
The main goal of the project is to contribute to the solving of the large number of backlog cases and the shortening of court proceedings.
Opening the conference, Croatian Justice Minister Vesna Skare-Ozbolt said the government was expected to consider and adopt in July the draft Judicial Reform Strategy and an Action Plan defining the strategic directions of the judicial reform and activities aimed at achieving the reform's strategic goals.
Twinning project advisor Satu Seppanen presented the project recommendations -- not to open courts which have not been opened so far, close courts which have been opened recently but are without staff, join all misdemeanour courts with municipal courts, begin the joining of municipal courts, reduce the number of county courts to 10 and consider the possibility of changing their jurisdiction to make them appeals courts.
Seppanen said the recommendations were the first step to a further analysis of the court system in Croatia.
Minister Skare-Ozbolt said Croatia was among the European countries with the highest number of court staff, but also the highest number of backlog cases, which she added made the judiciary expensive and ineffective.
Skare-Ozbolt said her ministry was determined to restructure and reorganise the Croatian court system.
She added the analysis of the Croatian court system was done in line with criteria defined by the Croatian Justice Ministry and Finland.
The conference pooled 150 judicial representatives from Croatia, Finnish Justice Minister Johannes Koskinen, and a secretary at the European Commission Delegation to Croatia, Constantino Longares Barrio.
Koskinen said Finland was satisfied with Croatia's efforts in judicial reform, but added the reform must continue.