The Council of Europe provided expertise on the organisation’s key activities aimed at strengthening the rule of law in its member-states throughout the sanitary crisis at the conference “Judiciary in the Times of the COVID-19 Pandemic”, organised by the Judges’ Association of Serbia. The conference gathered mainly judges from across the country, including one member of the High Judicial Council, and also prosecutors, representatives of bar associations, other legal professionals, civil society and the media. The meeting was opened by judge Snezana Bjelogrlic, President of the Judges Association of Serbia, Milan Antonijevic, Executive Director of the Open Society Foundation and Tobias Flessenkemper, Head of the Belgrade Office of the Council of Europe.
In his opening remarks Tobias Flessenkemper noted that Serbia was one of the states in which the use of online tools has contributed to maintaining the pace of court proceedings. However, he underlined that the adapted modalities must be designed in a way that would be compatible with Article 6 of the European Court of Human Rights and fair trial standards, as outlined in the Secretary General’s Toolkit to Member States. Ahead of the forthcoming elections for peer-elected members of the High Judicial Council, he emphasised that a pro-active approach of the highest judicial structures, especially of the High Judicial Council, is ever-more important given the substantive challenges to the functioning of democratic institutions across our continent.
Ivana Goranic, a Council of Europe consultant, recalled the valuable resources of the Council of Europe that could serve as a guidance for judges to navigate through these difficult times, notably the Venice Commission opinions regarding protection of human rights in the state of the emergency and an upcoming roadmap developed by the European Commission for the efficiency of justice (CEPEJ). She stressed that the President of the Consultative Council of European Judges (CCJE) recommended implementing Action Plans for the judiciary during the pandemic. She concluded by noting that during the state of emergency and in extraordinary circumstances such as the ongoing pandemic, it is ever more important to ensure that the judicial branch is working at full strength.
The support to this event was part of the Council of Europe project “Strengthening the Judiciary Reform Process in Serbia”, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs.