The number of hearings recorded by audio equipment rose by 12% compared with the last quarter of 2013, while of hearings held in courtrooms increased by about 10%, says the fifth quarterly monitoring report on the implementation of the justice sector reform strategy compiled by Promo-LEX Association and the Association for Efficient and Responsible Governance (AGER), IPN reports.
Promo-LEX representative Pavel Postica said there were monitored 300 hearings in all the courts of law of the country - 153 hearings on criminal cases and 147 hearings on civil cases. Prosecutors, lawyers and persons involved in trials completed 480 questionnaires.
Among the identified shortcomings are the facilities of the courts, which were given a negative grade by about 20% of the lawyers and persons involved in trials. Most of the times, there were mentioned the absence of offices for studying the cases and checkrooms and the nonfunctional toilets in courts of law.
The observers established that in 12 cases of 50 or in 24%, the agendas are not published on courts’ websites. There were cases when the agenda posted on the website didn’t coincide with the agenda posted in the court.
In only 22 cases or in 44% of the cases, the court decisions are published on the website on time. But some of the published decisions cannot be opened. In some cases, decisions hadn’t been published on the website for a month. Though the absolute majority of the websites have a search engine, these engines are efficient, even if to a low extent, in 35 of the cases or in 70%.
The report shows that only 13% of the people involved in trials are satisfied with the juridical information available, while 43% are fully satisfied. These are the lowest scores compared with other categories. On the other hand, the prosecutors are the most satisfied with the juridical information available.
