Final conference of the project “Reinforcing the system of court-annexed mediation”

On Tuesday 19 March, State Secretary Juro Martinović participated in the final conference of the project “Reinforcing the system of court-annexed mediation”.

The project “Reinforcing the system of court-annexed mediation”, worth EUR 1,500,000, was implemented under the Justice and Home Affairs Programme, funded by the Norwegian Financial Mechanism, as one of four projects aimed at strengthening the rule of law.

“The need to implement this project arose from the fact that citizens and businesses exclusively use courts to resolve disputes, which results in a disproportionate number of court cases and a heavy burden on the judicial system and its efficiency”, said the State Secretary and pointed out that mediation was unjustifiably left in the shadow of other procedures, so the aim of the project was to ensure that mediation in Croatia becomes sustainable in the long term.

The project was implemented by the Directorate for Civil, Commercial and Administrative Law of the Ministry of Justice and Public Administration, in cooperation with the Norwegian Courts Administration and the Judicial Academy as project partners. It included numerous activities such as a comparative analysis of the mediation system, a sociological and legal analysis of the reasons for the lack of use of mediation in the Republic of Croatia, development of educational materials, training for mediators and a public awareness campaign.

“The results of the project will certainly contribute to the improvement of the court-annexed mediation system, especially considering that we have adopted the new Act on Peaceful Dispute Resolution, and I hope that it will open up new opportunities for further development and progress through new programmes and projects,” the State Secretary concluded.

The final conference was attended by Ambassador of the Kingdom of Norway Arne Sannes Bjørnstad, State Secretary at the Ministry of Regional Development and EU Funds Domagoj Mikulić, and representatives of the project partners - the Norwegian Courts Administration and the Judicial Academy.