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In a joint announcement Meddzida Kreso, President of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Goran Salihovic, Chief Prosecutor of the State Prosecution, say that, during the last Structural Dialogue they pointed to the harm done by certain solutions proposed under draft laws.
The announcement says that the leaders of those institutions consider that the Article of the Law on the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which regulates the Court’s jurisdiction, cannot be revised, but specified further only.
“Neither judges nor prosecutors see any problems in this Article. Only politicians do. Also, certain solutions create space for inappropriate interference of executive and legislative powers into the work of the Court, which is opposite to independent judiciary standards,” said Kreso and Salihovic, commenting “an attempt by political parties to limit the jurisdiction of the State Court, so certain cases would be processed before lower courts only”.
The announcement issued by the Court and Prosecution says that the proposal of the Law on the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council, HJPC, of Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to which parliaments would select chief prosecutors, represented an attack against the independent judiciary.
“It is unacceptable to have executive and legislative powers select judges and prosecutors,” the announcement says.
More than a year ago the Socialist Democratic Party, SDP, and Union of Independent Socio-Democrats, SNDS, signed an agreement according to which prosecutors would be selected by entity, cantonal and Brcko District parliaments, as per a proposal by the HJPC, in the future.
The announcement further says that the proposed revisions to the Law on Salaries of Judicial Staff were not good.
“This leads to a conclusion that the goal of all of the proposed solutions is putting the state judiciary under the control of the executive and legislative powers,” Kreso and Salihovic consider.
The last Structural Dialogue was held in Banja Luka on November 11 and 12 this year.
