Ensure Uniformity of Court Data (MK0182)

Which public problem is addressed with the commitment? The Strategy on Justice System Reform (2017-2022) establishes that the form of annual work reports for the courts, the Judicial Council and the Supreme Court are not unified, which creates problems in respect to clarity and understanding of 153 report content, especially in respect to statistics, due to unsynchronized data. Most courts keep statistics on the number of received, resolved and pending cases that greatly differ from statistics on court performance kept by the Judicial Council. Hence, there is a need for unification and standardization of all reports (monthly and annual) developed by courts and judicial institutions. Although the deadline for addressing this situation indicated in the Strategy’s Action Plan was January 2018, identical findings are featured in independent analyses conducted in 2020.

Main objective of the commitment • To unify court reports and ensure they provide quantitative and qualitative information on court performance; • To develop and adopt methodology for unified annual report templates, and to develop adequate template for court reports accompanied by detailed guidelines for completion;

How will the commitment contribute to addressing the public problem? Introduction of the methodology on unified templates for presentation of information and data in the public will primarily ensure synchronization of data disposed by judicial institutions. Previous practices for collection and systematisation of different statistics related to the courts in RNM will be replaced with unified approach and template for data collection and publication.

Why is this commitment relevant for OGP values? The commitment provides uniformity of court data presented in the public, whereby the commitment is important for improved transparency and openness.

Additional information Link to SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions SDG target 16.6: Develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels This commitment is important to improve public accountability of courts in the Republic of North Macedonia by improving and unifying the structure of court reports and quality of data contained therein, whereby the public will be provided complete qualitative and quantitative information on court performance.

No. Milestone (enlist activities that will contribute to commitment implementation) Indicators (enlist measurable indicators/ benchmarks for monitoring and verification of achievements) Activity holder (government institution, CSOs or other) Start date End date 2.2.1 Develop and adopt methodology for unified templates of annual reports Methodology and other regulations (rulebooks, manual, form) for unified templates of annual reports by the courts in RNM are adopted Supreme Court of RNM January 2022 June 2022 154 2.2.2 Develop the form for court reports Methodology and other regulations (rulebook, manual, form) for unified templates of annual reports by the courts in RNM are adopted Supreme Court of RNM January 2022 June 2022 2.2.3 Manual for completing court report Methodology and other regulations (rulebook, manual, template) for unified templates of annual reports by the courts in RNM are adopted Supreme Court of RNM September 2022 December 2022

Action Plan Review

Commitment 2.2: Improve and unify the structure of court reports and quality of data 

● Verifiable: Yes

● Does it have an open government lens? Yes

● Potential for results: Modest