Interview – Milorad Novkovic: Work on War Crimes cases is the Priority

In an interview with BIRN’s Justice Report, Novkovic said that the extended systematisation of prosecutions that would hire new prosecutors is now required. Novkovic believes that it is necessary that the current prosecutorial staff are reassigned so that a number of prosecutors who are working in other departments can be trained to work on war crimes cases.

“The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina is a bottleneck for the prosecution of war crimes and it is necessary to have a bigger number of prosecutors. That is inevitable. For now, the biggest problem is the number of cases where applications were filed five years ago, but are still not processed. Also, there are a number of most priority cases under the Strategy in which there have been no proceedings. For this reason, more involvement of the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina and entity prosecutions are needed”, said Novkovic.

According to the Strategy for Processing of War Crimes Cases, adopted by the Council of Ministers in December 2008, all cases in Bosnia and Herzegovina should be processed within seven to 15 years. Most of these cases should be conducted by judicial institutions in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina , Republika Srpska and Brcko District.

Novkovic believes that the problems and delays to implementing the Strategy for Processing War Crimes Cases are “inevitable” but added that he is still optimistic that the deadlines for processing of war crimes as indicated in the document are achievable.

“In addition to problems with the number of prosecutors, it is essential to resolve the issue of the allocation of cases between state and entity justice institutions. This has to be done in a more efficient way, although I believe that a large number of war crimes will take place on the entity judicial level”, said Novkovic.

When it comes to the distribution of cases between the Prosecution and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and judicial institutions in the entities, the President of the HJPC said that the situation today is much better than a few years ago, when there were instances where one war crimes case was processed by both state and entity prosecutors.

“We are now no longer in that situation and it is a great success. Today, we know the exact number of war crimes cases and we know to which Prosecution Office they have been assigned. Also, until recently there were problems with the local authority when it came to war crimes. But that is solved too. Now, everyone is working within its jurisdiction,” said Novkovic.

In the interview with BIRN Justice Report, Novkovic discussed the efficiency of the Bosnia and Herzegovina judiciary, stressing they are still not as effective as they should be.

According to the president of the HJPC, there are a number of courts and prosecutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina who are “fully effective”, but there are a number of those who still have an unusually large backlog of cases.

“This country has emerged from war with a small number of judges and prosecutors, and the consequences of war have created an unusually large number of cases. Thousands of people lost their jobs and their assets in the post-war period. Privatisation has taken place, and many bankruptcy proceedings have been initiated and all this is resolved by the courts and prosecutors’ offices”, explains Novkovic.

Novkovic said that the large number of cases that arise from the war are the cause of “an inefficient judiciary”.

“However, much of it has been done during the eight years of reforms and the majority of cases have been solved. However, it takes time and patience to prosecute all the cases”, assesses Novkovic.

According to Novkovic, war crimes cases are a “huge undertaking” for which it is crucial that Bosnia and Herzegovina has an independent, competent and efficient judiciary.

“If we are not efficient, human biology will solve certain things much faster than the courts, and that certainly should not happen to us. For this reason, governments at all levels must have more understanding of the material support of the judiciary when it comes to logistics for processing war crimes”, concludes Novkovic.