As a candidate for EU membership, Croatia is working hard to get its courts operating to EU justice standards.

As part of this effort the Re-Uniting Europe Programme – funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office – has been running various projects in the commercial courts in Zagreb, Croatia's capital, before expanding nationwide. They have also been involved in improving judicial training.

All the schemes have exceeded expectations.

With the help of Croatia's Judicial Academy what has now been established is a group of qualified prosecutors who act as trainers themselves and ensure a self-sustainable training system.

Quicker cases

The second scheme was designed to improve the way the commercial courts are run and  cases were managed. It was run by UK specialist company, Andrew Gibson Consulting Ltd.

They helped implement the improvements, providing IT training and help with the process of managing cases. They also helped develop standards of service and a Court Charter.

Up until recently much of the courts' work has been paper-based but great efforts are now being made to try to do many more administrative tasks electronically.

Case databases have been created and computers upgraded.  Judges now have quick access to print and electronic information.

Court-user group set up

This first phase went very well and the public face of the court has been transformed. A court-user group has been created so that people can find out about and comment on the changes.

Zagreb commercial court judges are proud of their projects and have been enthusiastically sharing their experiences with other courts.

The President of the Croatian Supreme Court, impressed with the success of this pilot, has sought further management advice from British experts to introduce this model in other courts in Croatia and develop ‘Centres of Excellence’ to act as models for courts throughout the country.

Work has already started at four of Croatia's municipal courts.

Funding came from the World Bank, the EU and USAid.

Mediation

The final project was based on mediation – a useful tool if you want to cut backlogs. It often means more amicable resolution of disputes, at the same time relieving the pressure on the courts, and reducing the wait for a hearing.

The pilot was run by the British Association for Central and Eastern Europe and the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution. They ran in-house training for mediators, judges, court staff and lawyers, and a publicity campaign to let businesses and the public know what was happening.

Initially,100 cases were referred for mediation but, in the event, the idea caught on quickly and more than 300 were dealt with.

Pilot schemes around the country

The Croatian government is trying out the model in several other pilots around the country, using EU funding, before launching it countrywide. Citizens and businesses should soon see the benefits.

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