Norway Grants is a Norwegian funds dedicated to the harmonization of economic and social disparities and to the strengthening of bilateral relations with 16 Central and Eastern Europe countries. Norway Grants entrusted the CEPEJ to take the leadership on the second component of the program "Improving the quality and efficiency of the judicial system through infrastructure development and better management".

Duration of the programme: 1 September 2014 to 30 June 2016

Overall objective

The overall objective of the Project is to increase the efficiency of the judiciary and improve the quality of justice in line with European standards. Working alongside other reform initiatives, the project will have a key role in reducing unnecessary delays in judicial processes by applying tried and tested tools and in identifying court users’ feedback for the first time.

The objective of the project is to ensure that justice is delivered in an appropriate setting and through timely and well-managed processes. The CEPEJ created in 2007 the SATURN Centre for judicial time management, which analyzes the situation of delays in the Member States and provides tools for understanding and analysing their judicial proceedings. In this project, SATURN guidelines and methodology on time management and quality of reporting on judicial efficiency will be implemented in one court, and then described in detail to the other concerned Croatian courts.

Main activities

The CEPEJ experts group, with close cooperation with Croatian judicial authorities, shall:

• make a comparative analysis on the SATURN guidelines and time management tools used by Municipal and County courts and development of an action plan
• implement this action plan in the courts at Karlovac and drafting a guidance manual based on the experience 
• explain the different measures in the guidance manual to the other concerned courts
• provide technical assistance in the development of standards, norms and case weighting, and in the development of the role of judicial inspectors in monitoring Time Management of Courts
• pilot satisfaction surveys for court users and develop an action plan to guide measures to address the findings

Project beneficiaries and stakeholders

All Croatian courts; judicial and non-judicial staff working in these courts; court users; institutions and bodies.

Actions / events to come

• Two questionnaires on statistical data and on tools concerning management already implemented in Karlovac court to be prepared by CEPEJ experts and secretariat and sent to the Croatian authorities on 8 September for reply on 19 September.
• Analysis and Action plan for the attention of Karlovac Court to be prepared by the CEPEJ experts for the end of October.
• Implementation of the Action Plan, including 1 or 2 visits to the court by end of December.
• Specific CEPEJ webpage to be prepared by the Secretariat in September, which will ensure the visibility of the Project and which will also be a useful tool for all persons involved in its implementation.

Composition of the experts team

• Georg Stawa, Vice-President of the CEPEJ, member of the CEPEJ Working group on evaluation of judicial systems, Head of Department Pr 8, Projects, Strategy and Innovation, Ministry of Justice of Austria
• Adis Hodzic, member of the CEPEJ Working group on evaluation of judicial systems, Head of the Budget and Statistics Department, Secretariat of the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Simone Kreß, Judge at the Oberlandesgericht Köln, Germany
• Marco Fabri, Senior Researcher and Director of the Research Institute on Judicial Systems, National Research Council of Italy
• Nina Betteto, Judge at the Supreme Court, Slovenia
• Hélène Jorry, PhD student at the University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, Member of the Research Centre "Versailles Institutions Publiques", France