THE CASE WEIGHTING FORMULA SUCCESSFULLY IMPLEMENTED IN ALL BASIC AND HIGHER COURTS IN SERBIA

The High Judicial Council (HJC) authorized the creation of a Case Weighting Formula (CFW) in the course of the previous EU initiative implemented through the “Judicial Efficiency” project. The actions taken within the said project’s framework included the development and implementation of a formula addressing the three high workload case types - civil (P), labor (P1) and criminal (K), targeting at equitable case distribution among judge.  As a result, in 2017, the developed formula was applied and tested within 20 pilot courts - 16 basic and 4 higher courts. Selection of these particular case types has been made by the HJC’s Working Group, established for implementation of the CWF. The Working Group considered these case types both eligible for the measurement of judge’s work (case weighting) and case types which can significantly influence judge’s work.

The revised Action Plan for Chapter 23, adopted by the Government of the Republic of Serbia on 10 July, 2020, envisages activity 1.2.1.3 „Application of the Program – methodologies for evaluation of cases in terms of their complexity in basic, higher and commercial courts”. Aligned with the Action Plan, and given the successful ‘pilot’ activities supported by the EU, the project "Support to the High Judicial Council" (hereinafter: Project) was tasked to roll out the case weighting formula (CWM) in all basic, higher and commercial courts.

The first activity taken on by the Project was checking the functionality of the CWF in the 20 courts, where the CWF was implemented in 2017. Following the analysis showing that the CWF works successfully, the Project experts developed and implemented a Plan of Implementation of the CWF in 55 basic and 21 higher remaining courts. By 15 October, 2021, the CWF was successfully implemented in all basic and higher courts in the Republic of Serbia.

In parallel with those activities, in August 2021, the HJC established a Working Group for development and implementation of the CWF for commercial courts (WG). The Project experts worked closely with the WG members and jointly made several decisions, including:

• The CWF for commercial courts to be developed based on the same methodology as it was for basic and higher courts        (a combination of the two methodologies: “Data driven analysis” and “Delphi method- Expert’s panel”)
• The  CWF to include “P” (litigation) and “Pk” (commercial offences) cases, since those cases represent around 73% of all cases in Serbian commercial courts
• The CWF to be incrementally implemented upon adoption by the WG, through testing in two “pilot courts”, commercial courts in Novi Sad and Nis 

In October and November 2021, the Project experts have intensified data collection and analysis. The goal is to present the CWF for commercial courts at the next WG session.

The three main purposes of the CWF’ implementation in courts

• Equal allocation of cases among the judges within the same court’s departments, not only by number of cases, but also by case’s complexity, so all judges from the same department have equal “burden” to process the cases
• Application of court’s users’ right to “natural judge” – meaning no bias in case appointment. In other words, all court’s users and parties, have the same treatment
• Use of electronic random case assignment, supplemented by implemented case weighting formula is consider as one of the main anti-corruption measures in the courts (nobody can “choose and pick” a judge in particular court case)