The Croatian judiciary will implement the Court of the European Union decision, but an increase in opposing court decisions can be expected

11.07.2024.

The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that certain mechanisms prescribed by national law are against the Union law.
This decision refers to the procedures according to which the court panel decision can be sent to the parties only if its content has been approved by the judge registrar (judicial practice registrar), as well as that the sessions of the second-instance courts, high courts and Supreme Court have the power to force the panel to accept their legal standing. It means that the court panel that previously decided in the case, has to amend its content following the decision of the session of the court department.

Thus, the European Court of Justice ruled that the legal mechanisms prescribed by the provisions of Art. 40, paragraph 2 of the Law on Courts which exist to uniform judicial practice, are inconsistent with the Union Law.

The judicial authority will accept and implement the stated legal standing of the European Court of Justice. However, it is necessary to highlight the following:
We remind that we have previously warned the public and the executive power that frequent changes to laws, even fundamental ones (such as The Law on Enforcement, The Law on Criminal Procedure, The Law on Civil Procedure), make creating a stable court practice more difficult. Considering the enormous number of court cases in the Republic of Croatia, such a situation directly affects citizens and entrepreneurs and the resolution of their cases.

In such a situation, the decisions of the judicial department of the second-instance courts and higher courts, as well as the Supreme Court department sessions, played a significant role in unifying judicial practice. This results in an increased degree of legal certainty.

The authority abolition of the records service and the obligation of legal interpretations of the judicial departments of the second-instance courts, and higher courts as well as the Supreme Court will increase the probability of passing contrary court decisions in the existing overload of courts with cases. In the resulting situation, it will be necessary to devise different mechanisms to unify judicial practice.

In this context, we would like to emphasize that, in the short term, the judgment of the European Court of Justice will very likely increase the degree of non-uniformity of judicial practice. It would be more appropriate to leave a deadline for adjustment by which the number of cases will be reduced to a tolerable level. Namely, the task of harmonizing court practice is by no means the same when one has to uniform a hundred thousand or a million cases.

The President of the Supreme Court, as the highest body of judicial administration, will decide within a reasonable time on implementing the European Court of Justice decision in the organization and work of Croatian courts.

 

The Spokesman
of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Croatia
Justice Željko Pajalić

vrh stranice