War Crimes Processing Workshop

A one-day workshop on “War Crimes Processing in Courts” was held yesterday at Vlasic. The workshop was organised by the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HJPC) as part of an EU project “Consolidation and Further Development of the Judicial Communication and Information System” financed under IPA 2012.

The purpose of the workshop was to present the results of the comparative review of war crimes processing by all competent courts in BiH, as well as to discuss the current state of affairs and practice in dealing with war crime cases in courts. The implementation of the National War Crimes Strategy was discussed, including the review of the number of pending war crime cases in prosecutor’s offices and expected case influx in courts in the coming period. The referral of war crime cases from the state-level to entity/Brčko District jurisdictions was discussed as well. The practice of the Court of BiH in war crimes processing was presented, with a particular focus on the main trial management and the application of witness support and protection measures.

The workshop was opened by Mr Zijad Kadrić, judge of the Appellate Court of Brcko District and a member of the HJPC and Ms Úna Kelly, representative of the EU Delegation to BiH.

Mr Kadric underlined that the HJPC, with the strong support of the European Union, has been undertaking a range of activities to implement the measures envisaged in the National War Crimes Strategy and the recommendations of the EU-BiH Structured Dialogue on Justice with the aim of creating the conditions conducive to effective and efficient case processing. He added that the workshop is a part of cooperation between the European Union and the HJPC entailing the exchange of good practices and experiences among different courts to improve the war crimes processing in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Ms Úna Kelly, representative of the Delegation of the European Union to BiH, made reference to the recently released European Commission’s Report on BiH wherein it is stated ‘concerning the domestic prosecution of war crimes, further progress was registered in tackling the large backlog of war crime cases’. However Ms Kelly also added that as also outlined in the report additional efforts by authorities at all levels remain necessary in order for the National War Crimes Strategy to be successfully implemented.

The workshop lecturers included Ms Minka Kreho, judge of the Court of BiH, and Mr Milorad Novković, President of the Banja Luka District Court, both experienced experts in the field of war crimes processing, and the participants were presidents of the courts dealing with war crimes and judges assigned with these cases.

Conclusions on war crime cases processing adopted at this workshop are:

1. Efforts must be increased regarding the transfer of less complex cases to entity levels and to the Brcko District BiH while still in their initial investigation phase so that the state level judiciary can process the most complex war crime cases as stipulated with the National War Crime Strategy.
2. Criteria regarding the assessment of complexity for war crime cases must be improved in order to increase efficiency in their processing.
3. The implementation of war crime processing plans in the courts must continue in order to achieve greater efficiency in their resolution and to reduce processing time.

Europa.ba