Request for Referral of Azra Miletic Trial to Lower Court Rejected

Azra Miletic allegedly received a bribe from Senad Sabic and Ramo Brkic, defendants in an organized crime case. According to the charges, Sabic and Brkic promised to pay a certain amount of money to judge Miletic in order to influence the outcome of their second instance trial. The indictment alleges that Miletic accepted the proposal and received a portion of the promised amount of money through an intermediary.

At the last hearing, Miletic’s defense had requested that the trial be referred to a lower instance court, due to fears of prejudice and partiality from state court judges.

According to today’s court decision, the fact that Miletic, a long-standing employee with the state court, had built professional and personal ties with other judges didn’t indicate there was a concern for prejudice in her case. A state court press conference held after her arrest was also not deemed adequate grounds for a referral.

“The fact that the defendant would be tried by her colleagues, with whom she has built professional and personal relations, something which has generated suspicion regarding their impartiality, cannot be considered objectively justified in the opinion of this court,” the court decision reads.

The decision describes the the defense’s concern as “theoretical and illusory,” particularly since they are not associated with any specific judge, but the entire court.

“A working organization, such as the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which has 50 judges, in which doesn’t offices aren’t shared, in which staff doesn’t meet each other for days, which has existed for a little more than ten years and in which there has been a considerable circulation of judges, one cannot determine a justified fear of partiality,” preliminary hearing judge Minka Kreho said in the decision.

Kreho said Miletic has many years of experience in Bosnia’s justice system and is also known by a wide circle of judges at other courts, through various working groups and seminars.

The court also said the defense’s arguments didn’t describe the circumstances from the beginning of the proceedings up until the present date.

“Considering the fact that no procedural actions have been undertaken so far that would cause suspicion regarding impartiality and the generalized allegations contained in the request, it can be unambiguously concluded that the professional capacity and dignity of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina is ready and capable of responding to the challenge of trial in this, and any other case,” the decision reads.

In its motion, the defense said the state court had referred the case against state court judge Dragica Miletic, who was charged with the misuse of her public position. Her trial was referred to the municipal court in Sarajevo due to “an external impression of impartiality and independence.”

However, the case against Azra Miletic is different, according to the Bosnian state court.

“The court accepts the prosecution’s allegations that, in this concrete case, we are really dealing with a complex case of corruption with very serious consequences for the judicial community, which is directly linked to a case of organized crime, in which [Senad] Sabic and [Ramo] Brkic were the defendants,” the decision reads.