The Conference organised by the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of BiH (HJPC BiH) was held on 31 May 2010 in Ilidža and devoted to the topic „Institute of serving submissions- Problems encountered in practice and opportunities to improve it through the law amendments“.

The Conference brought together numerous participants –representatives of judicial institutions of BiH, its entities and the Brčko District of BiH, cantonal, district, municipal and basic courts.

The Vice President Danijela Mikić welcomed the participants on behalf of the HJPC of BiH and emphasized that the serving of submissions was one of the key elements of any court proceedings and that frequently improper service of submissions causes delays in court proceedings, considerably affecting their speed, efficiency, and accordingly legal certainty for citizens or parties to the proceedings.

During two panel discussions, the participants discussed the service of submissions in civil proceedings. Dr Alan Uzelac, Professor of Law at the Zagreb University presented the experiences of the legal system in the Republic of Croatia upon the amendments made to the Law on Civil Procedure in Croatia in 2008 and the current situation with reference to the service of submissions. The second panel discussion was devoted to the consideration of practical aspects of the above noticed problems.

Upon the completion of the Conference, the participants reached the following conclusions:

• By recognising the need to simplify and make amendments to the provisions of the Law on Civil Procedure governing the service of submissions, all the courts are called to submit their proposals  concerning possible amendments to the above laws by the end of September to the Project of the HJPC of BiH “Reduction of caselogs in the BiH Courts”. It is recommended to organize a public debate on this issue.
• It is recommended to review and analyze the provision pertaining to publishing  submissions and especially of lawsuits, in daily newspapers, their application and usefulness in practice and to take appropriate actions in accordance with the results of the review and analysis.
• It is also recommended to review and analyse the provisions on the subsequent written notice by ordinary mail (Article 345 Paragraph 6 and Article 346 Paragraph 2 of the LCP).
• The service through court employee has been recognized as potentially most effective and economical method of service, wherefore it is recommended to create the prerequisites for significant involvement of the authorised legal persons - by accepting the proposal by the HJPC of BiH to exclude the authorised legal persons in RS from the categories for which the ratio between the employees and judges is 1:3 (as is the case in the FBiH).
• There is a special need for the creation of prerequisites for a consistent application of Article 337 of the LCP regulating the methods of service of documents in the civil proceedings.
• It is necessary to harmonize the laws in BiH, which will contribute to a more efficient work in courts with reference to service of documents.
• It is proposed to revise the Law on Post Office in BiH and harmonise it with the EU Postal Directive aimed at gradual opening to competition – companies authorized to serve legal writings as a more efficient and purposeful method of service the official documents – when compared with the service by public postal operators.
• Full support is given to the continuation of cooperation with public postal operators at higher and local levels as one of the methods to improve the service.
• It is proposed to maximize the level of computerization of the courts by introducing legal possibilities to submit legal documents to professional users (lawyers) via electronic mail.
  

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