Association of public prosecutors and deputy public prosecutors of Serbia is implementing the project „Strengthening Independence and Integrity of Prosecutors“. The project issupported by Royal Netherlands Embassy in Belgrade and OSCE Mission to Serbia. Project is implemented in cooperation with organization CeSID.
Duration of the project: (November 2013– October 2014.)
The main goal of the project is establishing State Prosecutorial Council as a leader of changes in the judiciary reform in Serbia 2013-2018. In order to resolve the challenges of the judiciary reform, there is a need to strengthen role, capacity and image of the State Prosecutorial Council.
In new National judiciary reform strategy, building independency of State Prosecutorial Council, transparency and responsibility and strengthening the legislative framework is one of the main goals. However, there is a need to identify activities that will attribute in reaching of the established goals.
The main goal of the project is to support role and perception of State Prosecutorial Council, defined in the Constitution of Serbia as a keeper of independency of public prosecutors, based on the results of the research.
The specific goals are:
– to identify opinions of public prosecutors and deputy prosecutors regarding State Prosecutorial Council;
– to identify the knowledge of public prosecutors and deputy prosecutors regarding role and jurisdiction of State Prosecutorial Council;
– improving the knowledge about European standards regarding Judiciary Councils and their role
– recommendations for improving the role of State Prosecutorial Council.
Implementation of the project started on November 1, 2013 and will last for one year. In November CeSID prepared draft questionnaire. CeSID expert group prepared questionnaire after interviews with the PAS management.
Four focus groups were organized in November/December 2013 to test questionnaires and receive feedback how to improve and advance it. Experts from CeSID and one expert from PAS were guiding the focus groups. Focus groups were organized in Vranje, Valjevo, Sombor and in Belgrade. Each focus group was attended by approximately 10 participants from basic and higher prosecution offices.
The main goal of focus groups was to identify questions that are most important for public prosecutors and deputy public prosecutors and their expectations from research. Independent experts who conducted research used collected inputs for revision of draft questionnaire.
After finalization of the questionnaire CeSID conducted independent research/survey of public prosecutors and deputy public prosecutors during February/March 2014. Survey was organized in the form of structured interviews with the trained field researchers. There were 521 respondents for the survey which is more that 80% of all public prosecutors and deputies. CeSID collected answers from prosecutors’ offices (Republic, Appellate, Higher and Basic) of all levels and from specialized prosecutor offices (Organized crime, war crimes).
At the end of March draft survey was submitted to the Prosecutors Association and draft results of the survey were discussed at the Management Board of the Association on April 5, 2014.
It is planned to organize round tables to discuss draft results of the survey and to identify recommendations based on the results.
Final recommendations will go in two ways:
- Strategic recommendations – significance of State Prosecutorial Council
- Operational recommendations – functional role of State Prosecutorial Council
State Prosecutorial Council has signed a letter of support for this project implementation and expressed the interest to be actively involved in all phases of the project.