ZAGREB, January 7, 2019 – A report on last year’s activities in the Supreme Court released via the ‘eSpisa’ (e-files) application indicates that the number of unresolved civil cases increased while the situation with criminal cases is “more stable.”
There were 16,759 open civil suits at the start of 2018, 9,379 were resolved during the year, however, there were 6,839 new cases filed and currently there are 14,219 unresolved cases in the Supreme Court.
Compared to the year before, it is obvious that the number of cases being resolved is increasing and that the backlog was reduced by 2,540 cases however there is a growing number of new cases. Nevertheless, the number of unresolved cases is falling, the report notes.
Considering the increased inflow of cases, the question is whether the Supreme Court will manage to handle these cases without amendments to the Law on Civil Litigations.
As far as criminal cases are concerned, the situation is more stable. At the start of last year there were 625 unresolved cases, 1,906 cases were resolved during the year however 1,923 new cases were received.
At the start of this year there were 642 unresolved cases, meaning that similar results were achieved even though there were fewer judges in the Supreme Court. “The establishment of a High Criminal Court would set the preconditions for the Supreme Court to undertake its constitutional role regarding this branch of the judiciary,” the Supreme Court’s report notes.
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