Justice Minister Nela Kuburović met with the Regional Director for South-East Europe at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany Susanne Schütz to discuss Serbia’s further steps on its EU path.
Schütz emphasised that judicial reform is crucial for Serbia’s EU accession process, and welcomed its performance to date in this field.
Kuburović and Schütz concurred that Germany and Serbia had very good cooperation in the justice sector, as evidenced by the cooperation of chambers of notaries public of the two countries, as well as by GIZ-funded projects in Serbia aimed at strengthening the judiciary through the advancement of judicial professions.
On the Chapter 23 Action Plan, Kuburović explained that it was currently being revised, adding that its first Draft, having incorporated civil sector comments, had been submitted to Brussels for opinion during the summer.
Kuburović revealed that her Ministry had recently received the opinion from Brussels and was now rewriting, together with competent institutions, the text of the Draft Revised Action Plan to take the opinion on board, after which a public debate would be reopened.
The Justice Minister stressed that amending the Serbian Constitution was one of the biggest challenges of judicial reform, recalling that the constitutional amendment development process had lasted for two years and that the amendments had been welcomed by the Venice Commission.
She said that, due to the boycott of parliamentary activities by some opposition parties, there had been a delay in the constitution amendment process for the justice sector, the reason behind the delay being the fact that it was not good to change the supreme legal act without hearing opinions of all representatives of citizens.
Discussing anti-corruption efforts, Kuburović explained that regional anti-corruption centres had been set up, which helped to pass, in just over a year, final judgements against more than 600 persons, including public office holders, who were all convicted of corruption.
Minister Kuburović announced that a new National Anti-Corruption Strategy would be produced in the year to come, which would define new measures in this area.
Kuburović also indicated that the Free Legal Aid Act had been adopted after a 15-year-long drafting process, and that a new Personal Data Protection Act had come into force, thanks to which Serbia would sign an agreement with EUROJUST in November.