Justice and Public Administration Minister Ivan Malenica said on Wednesday that the ministry had for the first time made an analysis of the efficiency of judicial bodies in order to increase their efficiency, the plan for this year being to solve all cases older than seven years.

The primary goal of the ministry’s action plan is to shorten the duration of court proceedings, solve cases older than seven years and follow and deal with criminal cases in which the statute of limitations expires in the next three years, the minister said in parliament during Question Time.

Answering a question by HDZ MP Sinisa Jenkac, he said that at the moment there were around 430,000 outstanding cases, the average duration of proceedings being 283 days.

The action plan envisages shortening that period to 208 days, which would help close about 70,000 cases, the minister said, adding that special care would be taken of cases older than seven years, of which there are about 25,000.

The plan is to solve them this year, Malenica stressed, adding that the action plan would be followed by a monthly analysis of the performance of all courts and judges.

He announced changes to legislation to introduce deadlines for dealing with court cases. We believe that with legislative changes and investments in digitization we will make courts work more efficiently, the minister said.