Darinka Piqani speaks on judicial cultures in the Western Balkans
On 20 November 2020, Darinka Piqani spoke at the (online) kick-off event of the project 'Bridging the gap between formal processes and informal practices that shape judicial culture in the Western Balkans'.
In her presentation, she analysed challenges faced by constitutional courts in the Western Balkans in the pre-accession stage. Piqani specifically juxtaposed pre-accession obligations of judicial harmonisation to judicial culture in the Western Balkans. It was argued that due to the communist past, legal cultures in the region have inherited elements such as the ‘omnipotence’ of the legislative branch, precedence of written law, textual interpretation, that may ultimately undermine judicial harmonisation.
This project is coordinated by the Institute for Democracy 'Societas Civilis' Skopje (North Macedonia), in cooperation with the T.M.C. Asser Instituut (the Netherlands), the Judicial Research Center (Serbia) and the Albanian Legal and Territorial Research Initiative, with the support of the Dutch Fund for Regional Partnership (NFRP)/Matra. Other speakers in the workshop included judges and experts from Albania, Serbia and North Macedonia.
Please find more information on the workshop and project here