Adopted Rules of Procedure of the General Session of the Supreme Court: Candidates from the Supreme Court cannot vote

The judges of the Supreme Court at the General Session adopted the Rules of Procedure, which was a key step in order to continue the selection of the most important position in the judiciary.

At the beginning of July, the Judicial Council announced a public advertisement for the President of the Supreme Court, but that job could not be completed until the Rules of Procedure of the General Session were adopted, which will regulate the future work and voting method.

In the adopted Rules of Procedure, which Vijesti had access to, it is written in Article 29 that if the candidates for the election of the President of the Supreme Court, a judge of the Supreme Court and a person from Art. 33 of the Law on the Judicial Council and judges who are not judges of the Supreme Court, the candidate who is a judge of the Supreme Court does not participate in the work of the session, voting and decision-making, and the total number of judges of the Supreme Court from which the majority is calculated is reduced by the vote of the judge of the Supreme Court who is the candidate .

It was the dispute over the manner in which Supreme Court judges should be allowed to vote, who are also candidates for the position of Supreme Court President, that was the key reason why the work on the Draft Rules of Procedure of the General Session of the Supreme Court was prolonged.

The selection of the proposed candidate for the president of the Supreme Court will continue to be secret.

Article 32 of the Rules of Procedure stipulates that the judge can round off a maximum of three candidates from the ballot. When the judge fills out the ballot, he puts it in the ballot box, and the Commission member marks that the judge has voted.

Even these Rules of Procedure did not regulate how to avoid "white lists" in the future, that is, the possibility that the judges do not round off any of the registered candidates from the list.

If the ticket is incomplete, it will be considered invalid.

The proposal for the election of the President of the Supreme Court contains all candidates who received more than half of the votes of the total number of judges of the Supreme Court and must be explained.

"If none of the registered candidates receives the required majority in the first round of voting, the vote will be repeated between the candidates who received more than a quarter of the votes of the total number of judges of the Supreme Court. If in the repeated voting none of the candidates receives the required majority, i.e. more than half votes of the total number of judges of the Supreme Court, the General Session of the Supreme Court will state that the proposal of the candidate for the President of the Supreme Court has not been determined," the document reads.

In the repeated voting, the provisions of the Rules of Procedure, which are also valid for the first round of voting, are applied.

The Rules of Procedure enter into force and are applied on the date of adoption.