ZAGREB, February 22, 2019 - European Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova said in Zagreb on Friday that citizens' trust in the judiciary would not grow without court autonomy and that that the trust was undermined by excessively long trials in Croatia.
On the second day of her visit to Zagreb, Jourova addressed an international conference on the EU as a global leader in the rule of law, saying said that the rule of law and court autonomy were pillars of the European Union.
A functioning judiciary at the national as well as the European level makes citizens trust the judiciary, Jourova said at the conference, recalling some of the main complaints of Croatian citizens.
Croatians do not trust judicial institutions because trials take too long, she warned, adding that court autonomy was a precondition for restoring citizens' trust. Degradation of the judiciary takes a country further from democracy, she said. The public is not aware that degradation of the judiciary leads to a totalitarian regime, she said.
The Zagreb conference was held on the occasion of the establishment of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence and was organised by the Zagreb School of Law and the European Commission Representation in Croatia.
In a dialogue with citizens, Jourova warned about differences in the perception of the rule of law among EU countries.
EU countries are different in their interpretation of the rule of law due to cultural and other reasons, she said.
Dialogues with citizens are a direct form of two-way communication between EU citizens and European Commission officials on a wide range of topics. They have been held throughout Europe since 2013.
Once a year the EC publishes an overview of the situation in the judiciary. The overview covers mainly civil and commercial cases as well as administrative proceedings, with focus on the three main elements of a functioning judiciary - efficiency, quality and autonomy.
More news on the justice system in Croatia can be found in the Politics section.
