Appeals Court Row Stalls Bosnia’s Judicial Reforms

Bosnia’s justice ministry and its judicial overseer, the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council, both support of the idea of creating a new appeals court on the state level, but the country’s Serb-led entity Republika Srpska is refusing to approve the plan because it objects to its powers of jurisdiction.In a reflection of the wider political divisions in the country, Republika Srpska wants more judicial autonomy, while the country’s other entity, the Bosniak-dominated Federation would like a more strongly centralised, state-level judiciary. A draft law on courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina – which envisages the creation of an appeals court, moving the appeals chamber of the Bosnian state court into a separate institution – was prepared in 2012. Since then however, the draft law has not been sent to the Bosnian parliament because of the rival views within the country about state-level jurisdiction.The issue has now come to a crisis point: the European Union stopped its funding for war crimes prosecutions at the start of the year until a justice sector reform strategy is adopted. The appeals court is the only issue still to be agreed within the justice sector reform strategy. The European Commission’s Western Balkans director Jean-Eric Paquet told BIRN that funds required to pay the salaries of over 140 prosecutors, judges and assistants working on war crimes cases throughout the country will not be released unless the Bosnian authorities adopt the justice reforms.Paquet said that Brussels repeatedly warned the authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina that this financial assistance would stop if nothing was done.“Nothing has come as a surprise for the authorities concerned. However, the adoption of the justice sector reform strategy remains an unfulfilled key condition for the continuation of the extraordinary IPA [Instrument for Pre-Accession] budget support for war crimes case processing. This requirement will not change,” he said.The EC released the first tranche of funds in December 2013, but the second tranche was halted at the beginning of this year. This has already caused problems in the judiciary – some prosecutors are working without salaries, assistants have been fired and there is no funding for investigations.Milorad Novkovic, the president of the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council’s supervisory board for the implementation of the Bosnian war crimes strategy, said that the situation is “alarming” and that if a solution is not found soon, “the consequences will be far-reaching because work on war crimes will be brought into question”.The scale of the remaining task is immense: according to the council, there are still about 1,200 open war crimes investigations against known perpetrators, and even more against unknown ones.Strengthening public trustRepublika Srpska justice minister Anton Kasipovic told BIRN that the Serb entity’s biggest objection to the Bosnian state court – and the proposed state-level appeals court – is the current jurisdiction which allows it to “take over cases from Republika Srpska and the Federation entity courts at its own discretion”.However the Bosnian justice ministry and the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council said in written statements to BIRN that the new court would “increase the perception of independence” and “strengthen public trust” in the state-level judiciary. The logic in dividing the first instance and appeals chamber of the Bosnian state court, they claim, is that “each person has a right to appeal a verdict to a higher court” – which is not possible now. However, the Bosnian Serb justice ministry is refusing to approve the plan, with minister Kasipovic citing “numerous objections to the organisation and jurisdiction of the state-level judiciary”. “It is well known that the court of Bosnia and Herzegovina was created by a law which was forced through by the High Representative [the top international official in the country responsible for overseeing the implementation of