Deliberate Delays by Judges Should Be Sanctioned

Written by: Stjepan Lović

It is an indisputable fact that court proceedings take too long, which is why the goal of all previous judicial reforms has primarily been to amend legislation to expedite them. Therefore, many deadlines have been legally prescribed that the parties in the proceedings are obliged to adhere to, under the threat of losing the right to undertake that action.

According to the legislator’s opinion, the main cause of the prolonged proceedings lies precisely with the parties in the proceedings who delay it through their actions, and the court has no mechanisms to prevent or sanction them. Although it is clear that parties sometimes take many actions to delay the execution of the court proceedings, such behavior is not the rule. The court insufficiently utilizes available mechanisms to sanction such behavior.

However, the law has also prescribed deadlines that courts are obliged to adhere to in order to expedite the proceedings. The emphasis is on those deadlines within which judges are required to make certain decisions, and these deadlines are generally not adhered to. And this is without any sanctions. This significantly affects the duration of court proceedings, over which the parties in the proceedings have no influence. As just one example, we will mention a recent case.

An Absurd Case

The Bankruptcy Act stipulates that the court is obliged to issue a resolution on settlement within thirty days from the date of the finality of the resolution on the award (Article 248, paragraph 2). To clarify: the court issues a resolution on the award after conducting an auction of the property and after determining which bidder has made the most favorable offer for that property. Thus, in this case, the court, by the resolution on the award from February 2023, determined the most favorable bidder and ordered him to pay the offered amount for the property within fifteen days from the finality of that resolution.

The bidder offered a significant amount for the property, which he paid during February 2023, which is why the court, by the resolution from March 2023, ordered the handover of the property to the buyer. Instead of issuing a resolution on settlement by mid-April 2023, in accordance with Article 248, paragraph 2 of the Bankruptcy Act, which would pay the amount achieved from the sale of the property to the creditor who has a lien on that property, the court, without any explanation and ignoring numerous reminders from the creditor, only issued that resolution in May 2025, and that due to the order of the High Commercial Court of the Republic of Croatia from March 2025, which granted the creditor’s request for protection of the right to a trial within a reasonable time.

By that order, the High Commercial Court instructed the first-instance court to issue a resolution on settlement no later than two months from the date of delivery of that resolution to the court. It determined that the creditor should receive ‘appropriate compensation for the violation of the right to a trial within a reasonable time in the amount of one hundred euros’. Thus, due to the non-payment of the due and significant amount for more than two years, and without any interest, the High Commercial Court absurdly determines that the ‘appropriate compensation’ for such court behavior amounts to only one hundred euros!? In that resolution, it even confirms that the creditor did not contribute to the duration of the proceedings, i.e., that the actions of the first-instance court undoubtedly contributed to the duration of the proceedings.

Against that resolution on settlement from March 2025, the creditor filed an appeal, pointing out, among other things, to the appellate court that the court was obliged to issue a resolution on settlement within thirty days from the date of the finality of the resolution on the award, as is clearly prescribed by Article 248, paragraph 2 of the Bankruptcy Act. And to make the absurdity even greater, the High Commercial Court, as the appellate court, warns the creditor that this article prescribes an ‘instructive deadline’, and that the creditor ‘due to such delay received satisfaction and protected his rights through the institute of protection of the right to a trial within a reasonable time’.

If you did not understand correctly, the High Commercial Court, with such a stance, warns all parties in all proceedings that the legally prescribed deadlines within which courts are obliged to make certain decisions and act are actually ‘instructive deadlines’ (a term that no law recognizes), meaning that the court is not obliged to act according to them. Furthermore, the High Commercial Court additionally warns that the amount of one hundred euros means ‘satisfaction’, i.e., the equivalent of the damage that the creditor suffered because the first-instance court did not issue the resolution it was obliged to issue for more than two years. During that time, the creditor is not paid the money obtained from the sale of the property, and all that time it remains interest-free deposited in the account of Fina, which conducted the auction.

Reform is a Utopia

Any reform of the judiciary will not be possible as long as, even in 2025, the stance of appellate courts is that the deadlines prescribed by law bind all participants in court proceedings except judges. Without sanctioning the unlawful actions of judges and tolerating their deliberate omissions, and when courts accept that laws must be respected, the state or citizens of the Republic of Croatia will continue to bear all costs of violating the right to a trial within a reasonable time – even though these trivial costs are significantly disproportionate to the actual damage suffered. And judicial reform will continue to be just a utopia.