The “Support for Victims and Witnesses of Crime in Serbia” project was presented at the annual meeting “Judge Days”, held in Vrnjačka Banja, which gathered 1500 judges from all over Serbia.

The goal of this three-year project is to establish a comprehensive national system of support for victims and witnesses; it is funded by the European Union with EUR 1.5 million, and the project is implemented by the OSCE Mission to Serbia.

“The creation of the National Strategy for Rights of Victims of Crime is one of the most important elements of this project,” said Nataša Novaković, program manager of the OSCE Mission to Serbia.

She underscored that the key components of the project would be the improvement of the strategic and legal framework, strengthening capacities of state institutions and providers of support for victims and witnesses, development of IT in this field, and raising awareness in the general public about the existence, importance and role of victim support services in Serbia.

The project will include cooperation of a series of state, judiciary, professional institutions as well as NGOs, with a crucial role played by the Supreme Court of Cassation and the other courts all over Serbia.