Building a Worldwide Bridge of Understanding. Member Spotlight: Jasmina Krštenić

Jasmina Krštenić works as a Deputy Public Prosecutor in the Basic Public Prosecutor’s office in Lazarevac, County of Belgrade, Republic of Serbia. She is active at MBBI, and heads a project with the MBBI-Europe Collaboration Region, its first MBBI-Europe webinar. She is also very interested in mediation as an alternative to the legal system, and explains that Serbia is making moves away from law towards mediation to solve conflicts. She hopes to get more involved in international peacebuilding efforts and believes that more effective communication is the key to these projects. 

Legal Background

Jasmina has known that she would be a lawyer since she was a little girl and took steps towards this goal throughout her schooling. She began her career in 1998 as an assistant in the Municipal Public Prosecutor’s office in her hometown of Lazarevac, County of Belgrade. She remained in this position until she passed a judicial exam, after which she worked for one more year as a prosecutorial associate in the same office, and then became a Deputy Public Prosecutor. She began this new role in January 1st 2003, and has remained at the Public Prosecutor’s office ever since. Jasmina is passionate about Criminal law, as it comprises a large portion of her work, but she also cares deeply about Human rights law. To this effect, she successfully passed a Human rights law exam, and completed training on Human Rights at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France, to become a certified trainer for Human Rights and a Focal point of the Council of Europe HELP Programme for judges and prosecutors in Serbia and a member of the Consultative Board of the HELP Programme. About three years ago, Jasmina thought that it would be professionally interesting to take a mediation exam to become a registered mediator in Serbia. Since then, she has specially trained in family mediation, consumer and touristic disputes, but is qualified to mediate all types of conflict, and trains other mediators. Jasmina is also a Ph.D. candidate in International Public Law, and is specifically interested in Law of the Sea.

MBBI

Jasmina learned about MBBI while researching about mediation and its international reach. At the time, she had just become the founder and a Vice President of the Association of lawyers “AEPA” in Belgrade, and was looking to work with other international organizations. When she discovered MBBI’s website, she noticed that they had regional groups, yet no regional group for the Balkans or for Europe. Jasmina contacted the president of MBBI, and suggested forming a regional group for Europe, which eventually came to fruition. Jasmina became a Project Team Leader on the first project the Europe group took on, in which she worked on refugee, migrants and asylum seekers issues pertaining to Europe. Jasmina is passionate about MBBI and the work of the European regional group-MBBI Europe, explaining that: “My wish to contribute to this organization became true and I’ve been working all these months to improve the work of MBBI-Europe and to help make our first project its best possible.”

Shifting Towards Mediation

As a lawyer, Jasmina sees mediation from a legal perspective. She explains that the most important thing in any mediation is to reach some consensus between parties, with the mediator acting as a middleman, working to get the parties to accept the plan for solving the problem. Serbia, Jasmina explains, is seeing a shift towards the use of mediation rather than the legal system. There are state efforts to encourage people to take part in mediation rather than going through the judicial process, as mediation is often more efficient, requires less time and money, and can be more positive for all parties involved. “It is really very positive for both parties, because it isn’t a question of who is right and who will lose, but to reach the best possible solution for both parties with minimal costs.” Jasmina sees this shift becoming a worldwide trend in the near future. Courts worldwide are overrun with cases, and mediation can help alleviate some of the burdens on the legal system, as well as providing a less expensive and less time-consuming alternative. Furthermore, parties in mediation have more freedom to discuss their issues, whereas court is more structured and allows less room for exploration. “There is a court and there is a judge and they will reach a verdict according to law, and someone will lose and someone will win. But in mediation, mediators make situations where both parties can think of himself or herself like a winner, not like a loser.”

Past and Future

In her years of experience at the Public Prosecutor’s office, Jasmina has seen a wide variety of conflicts. The most difficult ones for her are ones that involve family matters, domestic violence in particular. Families can have very “deep and difficult” problems, as Jasmina says, and she has seen first-hand that emotional violence can be the longest lasting and most damaging form of violence. The legal system can further complicate things, as victims of abuse are not always able to leave the abusive environment due to a lack of options, though the legal system practically mandates it. A victim needs empowerment. Thus, mediation can serve as a preferable alternative in some cases, though these scenarios are very difficult, and vary greatly. In terms of Jasmina’s future in mediation, she wants to take part in international mediation in some form. Jasmina believes that most problems exist due to a lack of communication, and that most issues could be solved with proper communication. She thinks “that building peace in the world and building peace in Europe, peace in our neighborhood, peace in ourselves, is the basis for a friendly society and building a worldwide bridge of understanding.”

Article by Tess Hargarten, MBBI Writer