Achievements in the rule of law are the very backbone of the EU accession process. Over the past decade, the rule of law has come into the focus of EU internal policies. Rule of law in the EU is no longer an abstract duty but has gained considerable substance. This claim can be supported by the noted multiplication of various mechanisms and instruments to promote and uphold the rule of law within the EU. This renders the fluid concept of the rule of law an even harder-to-pinpoint, moving target for candidate countries. What is more, in the very context of the EU accession process, the methodology of reporting on rule of law achievements in candidate countries has been changing over the years, without ever being explicitly explained. The number and diversity of mechanisms the EU uses to monitor the state of facts related to the rule of law in its member states, the similarities but also notable differences compared to the indicators used to monitor the progress of candidate countries and the different sources the EU utilizes in these exercises complicates mutual comparisons and the setting of clear long-term goals in the accession process. At the same time, there still seems to be a threat of the candidate countries perceiving rule of law reforms as measurable goals to be achieved rather than internalizing them as a continuous aspiration towards the rule of law. The recent discussions related to the rule of law within the EU are mostly focused on the functioning of the judiciary, in this paper, the authors limit their analysis to the state of facts in Serbia in the field of judiciary. More specifically, the authors use selected aspects of judicial efficiency and quality of the judiciary as paradigmatic examples, supported by clear statistical data, to illustrate the achievements of Serbia in the field of the rule of law, through a comparison with relevant results of EU member states. The authors open their analysis with an overview of the complex set of tools and instruments used to monitor the rule of law in EU member states. This is done to illustrate the continually moving target of the EU acquis related to the rule of law. The authors then point to the methodological challenges found when trying to compare various available datasets and analyses related to the judiciary in Serbia as a candidate country. The authors then present and analyse statistical data illustrating the current state of facts in the Serbian judiciary, relying on selected indicators of efficiency and quality. They conclude that, despite some progress being made over the past years, Serbia still lags behind those EU member states that demonstrate the best results. The judicial system in Serbia is still a system where resources are not optimally distributed and where judicial proceedings are lengthy. The authors conclude that even precisely formulated interim benchmarks related to the judiciary fail to provide sufficient incentive for more meaningful and durable achievements. The authors suggest that a systemic comparison of the efficiency and quality of the Serbian judicial system with that of best-performing EU member states rather than with other candidate countries could provide a new impetus for systemic reforms and reinvigorate the accession efforts.
