OSCE Mission promotes use of minority languages in court proceedings in Serbia

SENTA, Serbia and Montenegro, 31 October 2005 - The OSCE Mission to Serbia and Montenegro organized on 28 and 29 October a study visit and workshop in the Senta Municipal Court for 19 representatives of the courts and public prosecutors offices from southern Serbia, a region where the majority of the population is ethnic Albanian.

The visit is designed to improve the service of the judiciary to national minorities. In several courts throughout the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina, court proceedings are conducted in Hungarian, the language of the predominant national minority of the region. This serves as a model for other regions in the country.

"Conducting court proceedings in the language of a national minority is an important step for Serbia in its effort to build bridges to those communities," said Stephen Kelley, the Legal Advisor on Judicial Reform of the OSCE Mission to Serbia and Montenegro.

"This training course provides the judges and prosecutors responsible for meeting European standards and the legal requirements of Serbian law with the technical knowledge necessary for its implementation."

Although the Serbian legal framework provides for the conduct of court proceedings in the language of a national minority, in those municipalities where large ethnic minority communities exist, the challenge has been to provide the necessary guidelines, infrastructure, and qualified staff to conduct all aspects of the court proceedings in other languages.

The judges and prosecutors from southern Serbia spent two days in the municipality of Senta to observe their Hungarian-speaking colleagues conducting criminal and civil court proceedings. This provided the background for discussions during which the technical and legal requirements, human rights issues and human resource needs were outlined.

Representatives from the Supreme Court of Serbia, the Co-ordination Body for South Serbia, the Justice Ministry, and other members of the judiciary also participated in the workshop.

The project forms part of the ongoing efforts of the Mission to support the efforts of the Co-ordination Body to implement the 2001 peace agreement, aimed at re-integrating the ethnic Albanian community into state institutions.