Our Scholars 2022 – Tamara Trajković

Your current occupation and country of work?
My name is Tamara Tamara Trajković and thanks to the support of Friends of ERA I was one of the participants at the Summer Course of EU Family Law.
I am a judge at High court in Subotica, Republic of Serbia. Jurisdiction of this court is bordering Hungary, and in that way, bordering the EU.

How you use European law in your work?
In my many years of working as a judge family disputes have always been the most challenging part of my job. This is mainly because the court’s intervention in family relationships requires a great amount of delicacy when addressing the parties in the proceedings, and an excellent understanding of both the domestic and international regulations in the field of family law.
The specific geographical position of the territory under the jurisdiction of the High Court in Subotica, namely the close proximity of the Hungarian border and therefore of the European Union, as well as the migrations of local people and dual citizenships, frequently necessitate the use of not only the domestic regulations, but also of the international conventions which govern the field, e.g. the International Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Abduction and the existing legal norms of the EU member states.

How you benefitted from the scholarship and the gained knowledge?
The course was very intensive, and well organised, with very good presentations and workshops. Participants were very active and contributed a lot to the quality of the course. It was very beneficial for me to attend this training as I often use family law in my everyday work as a judge.
The main focus of the course was cross- border situations in family law (divorces, maintenance for spouses and children, civil aspects of international child abduction, etc). This is something that I regularly deal with in my daily work, because a lot of our family cases are cross-border cases and thus closely connected with European family law.
Many of our citizens have habitual residence in EU, including their children, so in such cases judges often need to consult EU regulations.
As a result of this Family Law Summer Course, I am very well acquainted with rules of jurisdiction, procedure, and competence, and with the recent CJEU and ECHR case law in family matters.
Regarding the above, I have benefitted a lot with this course, and I am very grateful to the Friends of ERA that made it possible for me to attend this summer course.