Sarajevo court seeks funding

At a donor conference on March 31 in Brussels, Bosnian politicians and justice officials will try to raise 43 million euro required for the development and functioning of the country’s State Court over the next three years.

Experts say this amount is necessary in order to establish the State Court and its prosecutor’s office as entirely domestic institutions capable of processing the gravest violations of human rights and organised crime cases.

The conference will be attended by representatives from several dozen countries, including the United States, Britain, Austria and other European Union countries. They will be addressed by the chairman of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Council of Ministers, Adnan Terzic, justice minister Slobodan Kovac, the president of the State Court, Meddzida Kreso, and the head of it’s registry, Michael Johnson.

Johnson told Justice Report that the conference is intended to show donors a planned budget for the court, based on what has been achieved over the past two years, and remind them of their commitment to the project.

A similar conference held in October 2003, he recalled, raised 16 million euro to fund the court for two years.

A number of governments have promised to continue providing assistance to the State Court, notably Norway, Canada, the Netherlands and Britain. Britain and the US have provided the largest donations to date.

Johnson told Balkan Insight that he did not expect the conference to raise any major difficulties. He added that the Sarajevo court is a cheaper option than the international tribunal which currently exists in The Hague to try Balkans war crimes suspects.

The Hague tribunal began to operate in 1994. By the end of 2005, it had cost the international community the equivalent of 812 million euro. According to available data, the costs of a six-month trial before the Bosnian State Court amount to five per cent of an equivalent trial in The Hague. Current estimates say that an average case before the Sarajevo court should take about half a year to complete.

The court currently employs 12 prosecutors, of whom eight are nationals of Bosnia and Herzegovina and four are foreigners. Judging by the present plan of the prosecutor’s office, they may soon be joined by two more foreign prosecutors.

In time, foreign staff at the court will be phased out and replaced with locals. By the end of the transition process, the it should have become a completely domestic institution financed from the state budget.

Over the next three years, the court’s war crimes chamber is set to handle 98 cases. In the same period, its specialist organised crime chamber could complete up to 130.

Court officials also aim to construct a prison with capacity for 300 inmates. According Bosnian justice minister Kovac, work on the facility could get underway within six months and take about a year to complete. The overall cost of this project alone will exceed 14 million euro.

The new prison will be located in eastern Sarajevo and staffed and managed entirely by citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with input from a foreign consultant. The normal functioning of the prison would require a staff of 250, including administrative and legal personnel.

The prison is intended to house those who are sentenced by the State Court, including individuals found guilty of war crimes. Prosecutors have estimated that in the next ten years, some 200 suspects brought before the court will receive lengthy prison sentences.

Michael Johnson admits that the employment of foreign experts at the State Court has been the largest expense to date, and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. But, he insists, “If the foreigners can produce justice, it is so little cost.”

According to the available data, wages paid out to international personnel at the court account for as much as 24 per cent of the overall costs.

Although convinced that foreign donors will continue to assist the state court, Johnson remains concerned about how it will function after the registry begins to wind up its work. This process is to begin with his own departure on March 31.

A transition plan setting out how the court should adapt to these changes was submitted to the High Representative in December but is yet to be approved. In the meantime, it remains unclear how the institution’s finances will be managed.