Podgorica, (MINA) - During the last year, despite ongoing challenges, all courts in Montenegro made efforts to ensure efficiency and promptness in their work, said President of the Judicial Council Radoje Korac, adding that the judiciary remains considerably understaffed. 

Speaking at the press conference presenting the annual report on the work and the overall state of the judiciary, Korac emphasized the need to further improve the organization of work and strengthen the court capacity, but also to change certain laws in the part of regulating the rules of court procedure.

Speaking about the work of the courts, he said that they entered last year with 74,683 pending cases, received more than 91,300 new cases, and resolved 93,511.

“At the end of the year, 70,358 cases remained unresolved, or 42.93 percent”, specified Korac.

When it comes to the quality of court decisions, Korac said that the percentage of overturned decisions was reduced from 19 to 18 percent, and that of the total number of decisions subject to appeals, 73 percent were upheld, while 18.38 percent were overturned.

He pointed to the workload of the judges, stating that the judges of the basic courts handle an average of 712 cases per year, while the judges for misdemeanors and the Administrative courts have more than 2,000 cases each.

President of the Supreme Court Valentina Pavlicic, responding to questions about potential measures regarding the retirement of judges in order to avoid a new judicial blockade, said that the Ministry of Justice has completed work on a special law concerning the status of judges, including the retirement age.

“It is expected that the proposal will be submitted by the Government and that adopted by the Parliament by the end of April”, said Pavlicic.

When asked whether there was a timely response in the case concerning the President of the Court of Appeals, Mirjana Popovic, Pavlicic and Korac said that they responded promptly, and Supreme Court President the moment she received the written complaint, and the Judicial Council immediately after receiving the proposal.