A poll on satisfaction of users of court services shows that, on a scale of 1 to 5, the general score when it comes to courts’ performance is 3.1.
When compared to other organs, courts in Skopje have received a score that is а shade worse. The poll was conducted by the All For Fair Trials Coalition in December. It covered 1,100 respondents and different access such as transparency, access to court, and fight against corruption.
The answers concern the Criminal Court, Skopje Court of Appeals, Supreme Court, and the Basic Civil Court in the capital.
Regarding corruption, 40% of respondents, citing experiences of friends and relatives, said they believed it existed within courts. 9% of respondents said they’d been asked to pay a bribe in exchange for a court service. The Criminal and Basic Civil Courts top the list transparency-wise.
The former’s President, Ivan Dzolev, said courts had acted on 755,000 cases, which shows citizens had confidence in the court system. On the other hand, Justice Minister Igor Filkov described the results as bad.
“They’re the frames in what’s expected and they are bad. Let’s analyse and consider them, and then see how we should proceed. This is crushing”, he stated.