OSIJEK, Jan 9 (Hina) - Justice Minister Vesna Skare-Ozbolt said on Friday the government would tackle at its next session amendments to the law on courts so that very busy courts could cede cases to less busy ones.
OSIJEK, Jan 9 (Hina) - Justice Minister Vesna Skare-Ozbolt said on
Friday the government would tackle at its next session amendments to
the law on courts so that very busy courts could cede cases to less
busy ones.#L#
That would be the first step towards dealing with the problem of more
than 1.5 million backlog cases more quickly, the minister said at a
meeting in Osijek with the local county court president, Ninoslav
Ljubojevic, and associates.
The minister told reporters later that the number of judges would not
be increased as "we have reached the limit exceeding European Union
criteria". She underlined the importance of finding a way to keep
judges focused on the case and leave other administration work, which
until now they had to do themselves, to court advisors and associates,
whose number she said would increase so that the backlog cases could
be settled in three to five years.
Asked about new indictments from the Hague war crimes tribunal, the
minister said "there are no indictments from The Hague for the
moment". She said cooperation with the tribunal so far had been
"excellent" and that in the future it "will be reduced to legal issues
as much as possible, while politics has to be put aside".
(Hina) ha sb