Concern Due to Failure to Adopt Strategy
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At its meeting, held in Brussels on November 20 this year, the Peace Implementation Council, PIC, expressed its concern over the delay in adopting the War Crimes Criminal Processing Strategy in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The PIC Steering Board called upon the Working Group to submit the Strategy to the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina for its adoption by the end of this year.
At its two-day meeting, held on November 18 and 19, the Working Group, tasked with preparation of the Draft War Crimes Processing Strategy, agreed on most issues, but, BIRN’s Justice Report has learnt that another meeting is due to be held in December.
The Draft of the War Crimes Processing Strategy is supposed to specify how many staff members and material and technical resources will need to be deployed by the judicial and police institutions at the entity and state level in order to solve the large number of war crime cases in a reasonable time frame. In addition, the strategy is supposed to define how many cases can be tackled by the local judicial organs and by when.
Justice Report has found out that, up to now the Working Group members have agreed that the State Court will decide which courts will process individual cases and all cases, referred to local courts, “shall be processed according to the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
Assessing the current situation in terms of the rule of law in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Peace Implementation Council welcomed the arrest of International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY indictee Radovan Karadzic, which took place on June 21 and called upon the local authorities to “fully cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia”.
“The competent authorities need to facilitate the arrest of all ICTY indictees, including Ratko Mladic, without further delay, by dismantling their support network and addressing witness protection issues,” the
announcement published by the Office of the High Representative, OHR, states.
The mentioned announcement was published following the completion of the two-day meeting of the Peace Implementation Council.
The next meeting of political directors is due to take place in Sarajevo on March 25 and 26 next year.
