“During the period of one month each of our judges holds more than one hundred trials, and we should be aware that the job doesn’t finish at this stage, because the regular court responsibilities are followed by the accompanying paperwork, correspondence and collection of taxes,” says judge Dimitrić in an interview with Novi Magazin.
By the end of July this year, 37 commercial judges solved a total of 40,616 cases of all kinds, and only in July the additional 5646 cases. A judge with the least seniority has a salary of more than 120,000 RSD.
Answering the question of how long each process takes and what is the oldest inherited case, judge Dimitrić said that most disputes are resolved in less than a year. So out of the 12,025 pending cases, 9,543 cases were active for less than a year, 1503 up to two years, and 979 over three years.
“However, the most important problem of the court is to solve the oldest cases. They do not affect much the overall performance reports, but they are the most important indicator of our efficiency. For example, the subject of pending litigation which lasted for 32 years was solved this June. It was the case of an air traffic controller who got accused for a collision of two aircrafts over Zagreb. It should be mentioned that he spent most of the time waiting on succession, and the case was recently completed, “said Dimitrić.
According to him, Commercial Court of Appeal confirms the four-fifths of decisions of the Commercial Court in Belgrade, and if we compare the total number of solved cases with the number of reversed ones, we get a figure of 98.72 percent, which is the score of the court’s overall productivity.
President of the Commercial Court in Belgrade explained that cases brought before this court are more expensive than the ones brought to regular courts and, therefore, citizens should not quickly engage in these cases without prior consultation with experts, mainly lawyers and legal professionals.
“The protection of rights does not begin in court – citizens should prepare for making important moves in their actions by prior consultation with lawyers. This can help avoiding court proceedings. Any legal action, no matter how effective, carries both expenses and stress for the party, so the best thing to do is to prevent such cases in the first place by means of most suitable preparations, especially high-quality agreements and respect of contractual obligations, “says Dimitrić.
Answering the question of how to resist pressures, particularly in sensitive cases such as the Port of Belgrade, Dimitrić said there were no pressures at all.