Bosnian Prosecution Indictments ‘Still Secret’

Journalists reporting on war crime, organised crime and corruption trials, claim that such bans adversely affect professional and objective reporting, and that entering into courtrooms without an indictment is a clear handicap for any reporter.

Meanwhile, the Bosnian prosecutors – which decided two years ago that indictments were not public – claim that only parties to the case have access to these documents.

“Media representatives can get information about details from indictments when they ask for them, or they can just follow the trials”, said spokesperson of the Bosnian prosecution Boris Grubesic.

Journalists, experts and lawyers representing clients charged with the hardest crimes, claim that indictments should be made public.

“I believe that indictments are public documents and that by publishing them we would not diminish or violate the rights of anyone involved in proceedings. I believe that the prosecutors will have to change this practice,” claims lawyer Miodrag Stojanovic.

The practice of withholding indictments is justified by the Prosecutors with the claim that it is done per a request of the Bosnian Agency for the Protection of Personal Data. However, despite the fact that the Agency has publically claimed that the indictments and verdicts for the most heinous crimes should be made public, the prosecutors have not changed their practice.

Data Protection or Public Interest Since 2005, when Bosnian state judicial institutions started prosecuting war crimes, the indictments and verdicts have been made public. The Agency for the Protection of Personal Data asked in 2010 to remove personal information from those documents which are made public on websites, after which the Bosnian prosecution removed the indictments from the web entirely. Until February 2012 indictments could be acquired through a special request, but at that time, the State prosecution claimed that the Agency banned all issuing of indictments.

Shortly afterwards, as per a proposal of the Agency – the Bosnian State court decided to anonymise documents – essentially to put initials instead of first and last names. The media, victims’ associations and NGOs condemned this practice, asking for information about war crime trials to be made public, after which the high Judicial and Prosecutorial Council decided that anonymisation was no longer required.

Explaining those changes, the Agency said that in one case the publishing of personal data was illegal and at that time they sent a letter to institutions asking for the protection of personal data – but they never claimed indictments and verdicts should be withheld from the public.

“The Agency cannot be blamed for the extreme to which the institutions went in anonymising documents. One cannot question the public interest for making public indictments and verdicts for crimes which have no statute of limitations under domestic and international law, as well as other heinous crimes, on official websites,” said the Agency.

Meanwhile, journalists claimed that withholding information in indictments stops the systematic monitoring of any trial.

“Entering into a courtroom without an indictment is a handicap, almost an insurmountable one, for anyone wishing to seriously do their job. Reporting about war crime trials is one of the hardest tasks for any reporter,” said Mirsad Arnautovic from the Brcko Radio station.

Different Practices Miodrag Stojanovic, a lawyer representing war crimes defendants in front of the Bosnian State court and Hague Tribunal, claims he sees no reason for making judicial documents unavailable for journalists. “This practice goes against the one taken by the Hague Tribunal, which published indictments and makes them publically available for anyone interested in the proceedings. It goes against practices of other courts in the country. At this point I see no reason why the Prosecution on State level would take this position towards the media”, said Stojanovic.

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