THE RIGHT TO THE TRIAL IN THE REASONABLE TERM

Abstract

Serbia as a follower of the State community has taken rights and obligations from the signed international contracts among which it is the right to fair trial regulated by the article 6 of the European convention on human rights. In spite of existing constitutional, processing and organizational regulations proclaiming the right to the trial in the reasonable term, we cannot say that our legal system ensures a complete protection of the previously mentioned right. A great number of Serbian citizens` petitions tell us something about this problem. After the ratification of the European convention on human rights these citizens were enabled to contact the European court of human rights in Strasburg. In a judgment referring to the V.A.M. case against Serbia, the European court of human rights stated that, in the legal system of Serbia, citizens did not have efficient legal solution in order to protect the right to the trial in the reasonable term guaranteed by the article 13 being connected with the article 6, stand 1 of the European convention on human rights. The attitude of the European court of human rights in the V.A.M. case against Serbia was an immediate cause for introducing a special modality of constitutional complaint in the case of violation of the right to the trial in the reasonable term. As the text of the Convention on protection of human rights and basic kinds of freedom is interpreted within the precedent law of the European court, signatory countries should also take into consideration the consequences which the judgment in the case of some other contractual country could have in their national legal system.