The Council of Europe, from April 24-25, 2023, in Sarajevo, organised a workshop on writing court sentences for ten advisors and associates of the case law department of the highest courts in BiH and the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council.

Court legal summaries indicate the court's general point of view on the legal norm applied to a specific factual-legal situation by which the courts should standardise judicial practice. As a rule, a legal summary is drawn up when there are many cases with the same or similar factual situation, and yet the courts decide differently, either because of the ambiguity of the legal norm, or because of different understanding and interpretation of the legal norm. The legal summaries should go in the direction of a more general explanation of a certain legal issue, which is why they should be available not only to the legal community, but also to citizens.

At the workshop, advisors and associates analysed court decisions from which a legal summaries proposal would follow. The discussion was translated into the written word, because in order to produce a good legal summary, beside the legal knowledge, analysis of facts and legal norms, and their synthesis, very good writing skills are also required.

This training is a part of the Council of Europe’s efforts to focus on strengthening the capacities of the case-law departments within the domestic highest instance courts, as being one of the main mechanisms in harmonising the judicial practice.

The workshop was organised under the project: “Initiative for Legal Certainty and Efficient Judiciary in Bosnia and Herzegovina - Phase III”.