Joint Problems in Local Communities

12. April 2013.00:00
Participants in a meeting of the Association of Court Reporters, AIS discuss their recent visits to Brcko, Orasje and Trebinje aimed at improving collaboration between local judiciary and the media, as well as future plans.

As said during the meeting held in Sarajevo on Wednesday, November 14 this year, AIS visited Brcko, Orasje and Tuzla in the past two months and held meetings with representatives of judiciary, investigative bodies, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe – OSCE and media with the aim of improving their mutual collaboration.

It was explained that all these communities shared a common problem related to the lack of knowledge by journalists on what type of information they could request from judiciary and when they could do it, as well as the absence of an initiative by prosecutions and courts in Brcko, Trebinje and Orasje to establish contacts with the public.

During the meeting held in Brcko on October 30 this year it was concluded that journalists faced problems with accessing information from the Basic Court of Brcko District and Appellate Court of Brcko District due to non-existence of a public trial schedule, inability to obtain recordings from courtrooms and the anonymisation of verdicts.

Unlike the State Court and other courts in cantons and Republika Srpska, which began implementing the anonymisation of court decisions earlier this year, courts in Brcko District have been doing it for two years already.

Both the media and judiciary agree that the process leads to problems in their mutual communication. They expressed their hope that the anonymisation problem would be solved, so judicial institutions in Brcko would abandon the practice as well.

At the meeting held in Orasje it was concluded that transparency of judicial institutions in the Posavina Canton was not at a satisfactory level, primarily due to the fact that judicial institutions did not have spokespersons who can co-operate with the media.

Representatives of judiciary and the media from Trebinje said, during a meeting held on November 13 this year, that they face similar problems and accentuated the lack of information as a separate problem. During the Sarajevo meeting of AIS members it was explained that a meeting with judiciary and the media from Eastern Sarajevo would be held in late November this year.

The meeting would mark the completion of the annual plan of workshops in local communities for this year.

It was said that all representatives of AIS from all parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina would gather before the end of the year in order to discuss the achievements in this year and plans for the upcoming period.