Local Justice – Bihac: Nine War Crimes Cases Completed
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Most of the people, who are charged in war crimes cases, were and still are unavailable to prosecution bodies. For this reason, last year the Court had to deal with four cases that could not be completed during 2010. During 2011 we received six more war crimes cases, so we dealt with a total of ten cases, said Edina Arnautovic, President of the Cantonal Court in Bihac.
Arnautovic pointed out that all legal deadlines were respected in the nine completed war crimes cases.
According to the Court President, they faced problems due to the lack of conditions for holding trials, such as a lack of adequate courtrooms, rooms for offering support to witnesses, offices for judges an so on.
Executive authorities have demonstrated a will to solve this problem. Following the adoption of the cantonal budget, it is already clear that the problem will be solved either through an adaptation and reconstruction of the current Court building or, more likely, through construction of a new cantonal court building, Arnautovic said.
Fifteen regular and three additional judges are employed at the Cantonal Court in Bihac.
During the course of last year the Cantonal Court had a total of 7,224 cases belonging to all legal fields. 3,263 of them have still not been solved. They have been transferred to this year.
We are satisfied with the achieved results, considering the fact that we have registered a decrease in the number of unsolved cases over the past two years and the fact that the quantity and quality of work has been kept at a satisfactory level, Arnautovic said.Dz.D.
