New Law on Enforcement and Security

Newsletter 91

What changes are introduced by the new Law on Enforcement and Security?

The new Serbian Law on Enforcement and Security will come into force on 1 July 2016, bringing numerous and important changes to the enforcement procedure. The main reasons for adopting the new Law are poor efficiency in enforcement procedures, large number of pending backlog cases in courts, lack of unified court practice, and general dissatisfaction of creditors (as well as debtors) with the overall approach to the execution of enforcement.

Under the new Law, the public enforcement officer, rather than the court, will be responsible for execution of enforcement in most cases, which is the most important change introduced by the Law, in terms of concept. The court will have the sole competence in the execution of enforcement only in four types of enforcement procedures: enforcement of joint sale of movable and immovable property, enforcement of obligation to act, refrain from acting or suffer action, enforcement of decisions regarding family matters and reinstating an employee to work.

The most important change to the enforcement proceedings lies in the introduction of the appeal. The new Law provides for the appeal as the main legal remedy in challenging the decision by the court or a public enforcement officer. The objection as legal remedy is still applicable, although somewhat limited in scope; it is available against an enforcement ruling based on an authentic document and against procedural decisions rendered by the court or a public enforcement officer during the proceedings. The new Law extends the period for filing the appeal and objection to eight days (instead of five working days as previously envisaged).