Judge exam in the kingdom of Serbia

Abstract

The paper deals with the history of the judge exam in the Kingdom of Serbia. So far, this issue has not been the subject of legal-historical research, although the institution of a special judge exam has a tradition of more than a century in Serbian law. The subject of the paper is processed mainly on the basis of original unpublished and published archival material, as well as relevant domestic literature. Researching the history of the judge exam is important for researching the broader problem of judicial independence in the Kingdom of Serbia, since judicial competence is an important guarantee of judicial independence. The research of the history of the judge exam in Serbia is important at this moment given the fact that the official strategic documents of the Government of the Republic of Serbia announced the reform of the existing concept of the Bar Exam. Without knowing the beginnings of the application of the judge exam institution in Serbian law, it is difficult to implement a valid reform of the institution of the Bar Exam today. The institution of the judge exam was prescribed for the first time in the Kingdom of Serbia by the Law on Judges from 1891, but no sooner than 1911 did it come to life with the adoption of the Law on Judges and the Rules for Taking the Judge Exam. Only persons who worked in the civil service for a certain number of years had the right to take the judge exam, while lawyers who worked in the court were privileged in relation to lawyers from other professions. A number of measures were envisaged to ensure impartiality and publicity. The judge exam was three-part, consisting of a written essay (theme), solving a hypothetical case (clausura) and an oral exam. The legal-theoretical knowledge of the candidates about a specific institute, as well as the knowledge of national and comparative positive law were checked with the written essay. Clausura and the oral exam served to test the practical knowledge of the application of national material and procedural legislation.