Minister of Justice of the Republic of Serbia Maja Popović took part in today's 8th Lap Time conference organised by the American Chamber of Commerce. Some of the other state officials in attendance were Prime Minister of Serbia Ana Brnabić and Ministers Branko Ružić, Darija Kisić—Tepavčević, and Tatjana Matić.

At the conference, Minister Popović announced that in the course of the following year, a system of electronic enforcement (e-Enforcement) would be enabled, allowing commercial entities in Serbia to file enforcement motions electronically as well as to access the so-called e-Filing. ‘We expect that the pilot testing of the e-Enforcement will be launched in the first quarter of 2021’, she explained in a statement to Tanjug after the conference, discussing all the novelties in the digitalisation of the judiciary.

For the middle of January 2021, Minister Popović announced the advertising of a public procurement of a mechanism which would enable uninterrupted video conferencing for commercial courts. ‘At the end of December 2020, we will start designing e-Payment and e-Dispute for small value claims, with the support from an EU project. We will analyse the relevant legal framework applicable to the two mentioned proceedings before the commercial courts, and draft Terms of Reference for a continuous development of the e-Court application’, she added.

Minister Popović stated that the importance of an urgent development of a new software and the replacement of an obsolete system, better known as Libra, had been recognised. ‘The development of the first register of powers of attorney is currently underway. This register will facilitate a remote (or dislocated) conducting of legal affairs before bodies and institutions to which respective powers of attorney apply, and it will eliminate the need for physically expediting powers of attorney. We will insist on it being regularly updated with valid powers of attorney, with open access for everyone. The register is expected to become available in the second quarter up 2021’, she emphasised.

All these novelties – Minister Popović explained – will be reflected in the amendments to the Civil Procedure Code which are to legalise the ideas on how to conduct electronic communication and access to electronic case files. These amendments are to be drafted in the first six months of 2021.

Minister Popović emphasised that the Ministry of Justice in collaboration with Microsoft company was the first in the region to implement a project involving artificial intelligence and machine learning in the drafting of judgments on misdemeanour offences prescribed by the Road Traffic Safety Act. ‘The objective of this project was to offer judges of misdemeanour courts a sample of penal measures corresponding a specific misdemeanour, i.e. to provide them with a useful tool when drafting judgments, which would ultimately result in an increased efficiency of the courts. I believe that this will allow the judges to spend less time on the administrative tasks, leaving them more time to draft more judgments and focus their efforts on the parts of court procedures and proceedings where their knowledge and expertise bring the greatest value’, she explained.

Minister Popović said that, as part of the digitalisation of the judicature, the Ministry of Justice had already introduced a series of novelties, such as the e-Auction, electronic notice boards, and a modern case law portal. ‘For the purpose of automatising the process of court fee payments and shortening the time judges and court staff spend on this process, the Ministry of Justice has already upgraded the existing case management system in courts of general jurisdiction and established the Central System of Court Fees. What this practically means is that parties to a case will obtain system-generated and printed fee payment requests with the bank account details and payment reference numbers’, she stated.

‘In the course of 2020, the Ministry of Justice independently began further developing this system for the commercial courts. As of November 2020, payments of commercial court fees are debited automatically’, Minister Popović added. She explained that this project was continuing, and that its overall objective was enabling online payments of court fees through the e-Judiciary Portal, the e-Court application, and the POS terminals available at the commercial court counters. ‘All of these improvements aimed at increasing the efficiency of the judicature are planned for the first quarter of 2021’, she emphasised.

Minister Popović said that each of those improvements were modelled after countries which the Council of Europe Commission for the Evaluation of the Efficiency of Justice had ranked highly for court fees. ‘Results will surely be visible during the present Government’s mandate. My goal is to secure full continuity and an uninterrupted flow of the ICT process, without having to think about time constraints’, she concluded.