From Monday, Judicial Warning Measures: They Demand a Minimum to Restore Judges’ Status to What It Was 24 Years Ago

First-instance judges are entering a so-called white strike to draw attention to the fact that their salary base has stagnated for almost a quarter of a century, while the average net salary has increased six times more during the same period. Judges will work, but it will not be possible to register a company, conduct a divorce, or carry out inheritance proceedings.

Due to the lack of dialogue with the executive authorities, warning measures will be implemented in all first-instance courts in Croatia from May 8 to May 19, 2023. In the next two weeks, all actions in first-instance proceedings will be postponed, while council meetings will be held in second-instance proceedings, but without the dispatch of decisions. The exception at all levels are urgent cases where irreparable damage could occur. During the warning measures, judges implementing the measures will be at their workplace and perform other duties within their judicial responsibilities for the entire working time, as emphasized by the Association of Croatian Judges (UHS).

– According to available information, more than 70 percent of first-instance judges will participate in the warning measures, and we also have the support of state attorneys. We note that urgent cases will be resolved without delay, but the measures imply that there will be no work in e-files, no registration of new legal entities, inheritance decisions, or, for example, divorce – emphasizes Vesna Horvath, President of the III Zagreb Branch of UHS, adding that notifications of postponed hearings have been sent to the parties.

Judges demand that their status be returned to what it was in 1999, because if judicial salaries had increased according to the law at that time, today the net salary of that first-instance judge would be €3,455 (HRK 26,020) instead of the current €1,522. Specifically, the salary of a first-instance judge at that time was up to 3.4 times higher than the average salary in the country, but in those 24 years, the average salary in Croatia has increased 6 times more than the average judicial salary.

The Association of Croatian Judges proposes a three-step reform; in the first, “firefighting measures” would be implemented to urgently equalize the lowest salary of a novice first-instance judge with the highest salary of a court advisor at the Supreme Court (who currently receives €2,126.66). This step can be achieved by increasing the salary by €600 net, which is proposed to be achieved by raising the base for all judicial officials by 20% and increasing the coefficient for first-instance judicial officials from 3.54 to 4.19.

The second step refers to a permanent solution – the proposal and implementation of a unified law that would introduce indexation in accordance with EU practice – determining the base as the average monthly gross salary per employee in legal entities in the Republic of Croatia in the previous year, according to the calculation of the State Bureau of Statistics, a system of pay grades, and equalizing the salaries of second-instance judges with the salaries of judges of high specialized courts.

– We are presenting concrete solutions and calculations, because what the Ministry of Justice and Administration currently offers us is an 8 percent increase in the base for all judicial officials and an increase in the coefficient for first-instance judicial officials from 3.54 to 4.21 and an addition through non-taxable income, although they forget that vacation pay, transportation, or Christmas bonuses are official, earned, but not official rights.

Croatia has a tripartite division of power, which implies an independent judiciary and judges as state officials who must remain completely independent in their work, and that is why we are seeking a special law – continues Vesna Horvath, emphasizing that the base for calculating the salary of a first-instance judge is currently €625.2, while for primary health care doctors it is €929.61, with the important difference that judges, as officials, practically cannot do anything outside their primary duty, i.e., they do not have the possibility of additional income.

Despite Outstanding Results, the Number of Cases in First-instance Courts Never Higher, and Salaries Never Lower

Along with these two key steps for equalizing the pay model, UHS emphasizes the importance of opening a discussion on improving working conditions for officials and clerks in first-instance courts with the aim of ensuring the regular functioning of the judiciary. About 1,200 first-instance judges in 34 municipal, 9 commercial, and 4 administrative courts annually work on more than a million new cases, which is the highest per judge compared to all EU member states.

On the other hand, we are witnessing a continuous decline in employees in official positions without which it is difficult to conduct proceedings under regular conditions. The Municipal Civil Court in Zagreb alone lost 54 officials during 2022 (21 court reporters, 17 registrars, 8 land registry clerks, 1 judicial trainee, 4 advisors, and 3 clerks). Despite this, the case resolution rate in first-instance courts in 2022 was 112 percent (53,429 cases were resolved more than were received in 2022), and the resolution time was shortened on average by 80 days.

The implementation of the mentioned law would cover more than 2,100 judges and state attorneys (whose work is also regulated by the Law on Salaries of Judges and Other Judicial Officials), and the reform would cost about five million euros per month, of which about 40% would return to the state budget.