A conference on “Reducing the backlog of enforcement cases – proposals for improvement of the legal framework” was organised by the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HJPC BiH) in Sarajevo on Wednesday.
Conference participants were informed that there are three quarters (1.5 million) of enforcement cases out of total of two million unsolved cases currently before the courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
This represents big burden for the BiH judiciary. Among enforcement cases are proceedings related to non-payment of public service bills and TV licence fees.
Renzo Daviddi, Acting Head of the EU Delegation to BiH, noted that the European Union has provided substantial technical assistance in this field, and it was “important for us to deal with the backlog of enforcement cases because this question has several dimensions, especially considering the fact that the economic crisis is strongly affecting the problem.“
He added that the European Union is committed to resolution of these problems and that it has supported the HJPC BiH with a grant of 1.5 million Euros to establish electronic data processing and make necessary legislative changes. Pointing out that other countries are experiencing similar problems, Daviddi said it was crucial to find out why non-payment is such a serious problem. “If this could be solved at the administrative level we could prevent these cases from coming to court. Therefore, it is necessary to find another way of solving the problem.“
Allan Reed, USAID Mission Director in Bosnia and Herzegovina, stressed the importance of establishing the rule of law, which requires efficient and independent judicial institutions in BiH, and in this context, reducing the backlog of enforcement cases. He especially emphasized the importance of accomplishing the strategic goals of judicial reform in order that Bosnia and Herzegovina makes progress in the European integration. HJPC BiH President Milorad Novković confirmed that a significant number of communal cases are being sent to the courts, although this isn’t the practice in the region.
“Bosnia and Herzegovina needs to solve this problem,“ Novković said, and he explained that one of the reasons there is such a backlog of enforcement cases is that the BiH population has been impoverished and therefore unable to pay their bills, which leads to court cases. He said that in the framework of the Action Plan for implementation of the Strategy for Justice Sector Reform, in regard to reducing the backlog of enforcement cases, two working groups were created in June 2008., consisting of representatives of the justice ministries at state and entity levels and the relevant professional organisations and stakeholders. One working group is dealing with solving questions of communal cases and another with improving enforcement proceedings which was the main subject of the conference. A number of proposals and possible amendments to regulations were discussed.
