Representatives of the Administration of the Supreme Court of Latvia visited the Supreme Court of Slovenia to exchange experience in the organization of court work in various areas – communication, personnel management, provision of IT support, document management, and project management.

When addressing the Latvian delegation, Miodrag Đorđević, the President of the Supreme Court of Slovenia, emphasized the importance of occasions when specialists, who ensure the work of judges and of a court, gather and share their experience. It is important for specialists to have the opportunity to talk about issues that are specific to court work organization, therefore the experience of colleagues is especially useful.

Contrary to Latvia, where the Supreme Court has its own Administration, but the work of courts of first and appeal instances is ensured by the separate Court Administration, in Slovenia the Supreme Court administers the work organization of all courts. Therefore, the Slovenian colleagues shared their experience regarding the entire Slovenian judicial system.

A couple of years ago, the Supreme Court of Slovenia received the Council of Europe's “Crystal Scales of Justice” Prize for the “IQ Justice” project, the aim of which was to improve the quality of court rulings by organizing trainings for increasing the competence of court employees, as well as for enhancing public trust in courts by starting public education campaign. Jaša Vrabec, the Head of the Office for Public Relations, shared his experience on the methods used at this campaign – production of informative booklets and video materials giving explanation to court proceedings targeted to different audiences.

The Head of the Office for Public Relations also presented the process of surveying court clients aimed at establishing levels of satisfaction with court work. As in Latvia, the rating given by court clients is higher than the opinion of society as a whole.

Agata Cevc, the Representative of the Case-Law Department, shared her experience on making the case-law accessible to the public, while Rado Brezovar, the Organisational Secretary, and Bojan Muršec, the Director of the Centre for Informatics, presented court information systems and application thereof in improving the efficiency of judicial work.

At the conclusion of the visit, the Latvian delegation visited the Central Library of Courts, which houses a large collection of historical books.

The delegation of the Supreme Court of Latvia included Zane Mičule, the Project Manager of the Administration, Pāvels Veļeckis, the Head of the Information Technology Division, Gunita Auziņa, the Head of the Human Resources Division, Rasma Zvejniece, the Head of the Communication Division, Iveta Jaudzema, the International Cooperation Specialist of the Communication Division, and Elīna Majore, the Head of the Chancery.

 

Information prepared by

Rasma Zvejniece, the Head of the Division of Communication of the Supreme Court

E-mail: rasma.zvejniece@at.gov.lv, telephone: +371 67020396, +371 286522

Photos by the Supreme Court of the Republic of Slovenia