Minister of Justice Maja Popović met today with the Head of the EU Delegation to Serbia Ambassador Sem Fabrizi to discuss rule of law and judicial reform, which are key topics for the European integration process.

Minister Popović and Ambassador Fabrizi talked about the process of harmonization of the Serbian legislation with the EU acquis in view of the fact that Serbia’s goal is not just pure membership and fulfilment of technical criteria within the negotiation chapters, but strengthening a modern state founded on the rule of law and creating a future credible EU member.

Minister Popović thanked for EU support to Serbia in the process of European integration, as well as in the reform processes in the area of judiciary, adding that Serbia was working intensively on meeting the European agenda and alignment with the European legislation with the aim of a faster progress of our country on its path to the EU membership.

Minister Popović informed Ambassador Fabrizi about steps taken to increase efficiency of the judiciary and ongoing work on the analysis of the number of judges and courts, as well as ideas to open new courts, especially in Belgrade. In this regard, she said that delegation of jurisdiction of cases was launched throughout Serbia.

With respect to the goal to improve the work of the courts and access to justice, she thanked Ambassador Fabrizi for EU support in implementation of the project on integration of a new automated case management system (Super SAPS), of which she has high expectation, and which will speed up resolution of cases.

Ambassador Fabrizi reiterated that the rule of law is at the hearth of  Serbia’s accession process to the EU, and that Serbia’s acceleration and deepening of reforms in the Chapter 23 – as indicated in the 2020 EC report – was important for the entire negotiation process.

Head of the EU Delegation said that Serbia had to continue its European path, and that further EU support to strengthening, adoption and implementation of reforms was very important, to the benefit of citizens.

Constitutional amendments were also discussed at the meeting, as well as deadlines for constitutional changes. The Minister added that they were already thinking about the entire set of laws that will come afterwards.