The results of the three-year Improving Judicial Quality Project presented

Developed a mentoring system for newly appointed judges, improved quality of court decisions, created preconditions for infrastructural investments in judicial institutions and strengthened role of the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina are some of the results achieved through a three-year Improving Judicial Quality Project implemented with the financial support of the Government of Norway and in cooperation with the Norwegian Courts Administration and the Council for the Judiciary of the Netherlands.

The project results were presented at the final conference, held on 25 March 2022 in Sarajevo, and attended by the representatives of the HJPC BiH, judicial institutions from BiH and international partners.

“It gives me great pleasure to address the members of the judiciary and international partners by saying that the activities that were part of this project have significantly contributed to improving performance of the courts and strengthening their role, primarily for the benefit of citizens, but also for judicial office holders by improving their working conditions", President of the HJPC BiH, Mr Halil Lagumdzija, was quoted as saying.

The following results have been achieved during the project implementation:

•  Civil litigation guidelines have been developed;
•  The Manual and the Guidelines for drafting court decisions in civil litigation cases have been developed;
•  The draft legal and programme framework for mentoring has been prepared and the pilot phase in two courts in BiH completed;
•  As many as 598 additional exam questions have been developed that will be used for entrance exams for applicants seeking first-time judicial appointment;
•  digitalization of the judiciary has been increased through the introduction of the 2^nd generation SOKOP-Mal system for electronic filing and processing of utility cases in the first instance courts in BiH;
•  the main design for the reconstruction and adaptation of the Miljacka Penitentiary for the purposes of expansion of premises of the Cantonal Court in Sarajevo and the Municipal Court in Sarajevo has been developed, thereby creating the preconditions for infrastructure investment;

As pointed out at the event, thanks to the cooperation of institutions from BiH, Norway and the Netherlands, the BiH courts today apply modern working methods, where strategic objectives aimed at improving the judicial system are set out in line with the principles of the European Network of Councils for the Judiciary, which is extremely important for BiH's progress towards the EU membership.

Norway is the largest bilateral donor of the BiH judiciary, and the cooperation is taking place in partnership with the HJPC BiH and the judiciary, through the strengthening of inter-institutional cooperation.

As the partners from Norway and the Netherlands pointed out at the event, the institutional cooperation will continue.