More than 100 court decisions were analysed with the aim of establishing a system that will ensure quality decision drafting in all courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The analysis of randomly selected decisions from various fields of civil law, with the aim of attaining an objective view of the quality of decisions in BiH, was made by the HJPC BiH team, in cooperation with judges and other court staff, under the project Improving Judicial Quality, with the financial support of the Government of Norway and in cooperation with the Norwegian Courts Administration and the Council for the Judiciary of Netherlands.

The quality of drafting court decisions plays a key role in creating positive perception of citizens and building their trust in justice system, which is why the HJPC BiH works intensively towards establishing methodologies and mechanisms that will help judges draft decisions in civil proceedings.

Based on the results of the analysis, the development of Guidelines and Manual for court decision drafting will follow, as well as trainings for 300 first instance judges, which should contribute to the establishment of standards for decision drafting.

Judgments and court decisions are the first contact of citizens with the justice system. A perception of the courts and judges performance is created based on rendered judgements and decisions. Furthermore, based on these impressions opinions of the judicial system are created –  trust or distrust in it.

Court judgements are often insufficiently clear to the public, but also to the parties to the dispute, or they leave room for different interpretations, which causes citizens to feel uncertain and insecure. Therefore, the judgements must be well-conceived and understandable to the citizens without legal background. It must be clear from the judgement based on which facts and evidence the court decided so.

At the same time, quality decision drafting is one of the steps towards attaining legal predictability.