The Cantonal Court in Gorazde: No One to Conduct Trials

According to the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (VSTV), the Cantonal Prosecution in Gorazde has three war crimes cases that should be heard. 

The Cantonal Court in Gorazde says it is unlikely that they will be able to hear war crimes cases since they will not have enough judges to form a three-member Trial Chamber. Currently, the court has only four employed judges. 

“If there are procedural requirements which prevent one of the judges to bring verdicts in the case, for example, the judge served in a previous stage so he is excluded by the law, then we cannot constitute the

Trial Chamber, which has to consist of three judges,” explains Semija Kuljuh, the president of the Cantonal Court in Gorazde. 

The Cantonal Prosecution also believe that the court will not be able to process war crimes cases due to an insufficient number of judges.

Both institutions however claim that the cases could be prosecuted if they are assigned to another cantonal court in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH).

Meanwhile VSTV has not made any decisions about the “expansion of the Cantonal Court in Gorazde.”

The Ministry of Justice of the Bosansko-podrinjski Canton (BPK) – of which Gorazde is a part – also say that they have not received a request that would provide funds for the hiring of additional judges this year.

According to the provisions of  The Criminal Procedure Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Trial Chambers, which consist of three judges, bring verdicts in cases of war crimes. 

The law says that a Trial Chamber member cannot be the same judge as the judge who sat on the preliminary hearing or during the pre-trial, or if he served in these proceedings in some another capacity.

Minimum Number of Judges The Strategy for the Prosecution of War Crimes, which was adopted in December 2008, envisages that less complex cases are to be transferred from the state to the entity judiciary, for prosecution.

Three cases were transferred to this Canton. Yet the president of the Court in Gorazde, Semija Kuljuh, explains that because the court works with the “minimum number of judges”, there are not enough of them to hear cases of war crimes. 

“We have a total of four judges, along with me. When we receive a war crimes case it will be assigned to one of the judges, and it depends on the procedural requirements whether we could hold the trial and finish it here,” says Kuljuh. 

Kuljuh explains that her court can only hold trials in the case if just one judge is involved in the preliminary proceedings, i.e. if that judge confirmed the indictment.

She points out that if the Prosecution requests custody for the suspects or the indictees, which, according to law, must be decided by another judge during the preliminary proceedings, then the Court would not have sufficient members to constitute the Trial Chamber.

The Chief Prosecutor of the Cantonal Prosecution in Gorazde, Mirsad Bilajac, says that if there is an indictment in the case, they will always seek custody, “since it is a matter of a war crime.”

“Therefore, the judge who is deciding on custody could no longer serve in the Trial Chamber,” explains Bilajac.

Delegation of Cases to the Nearest Court Both institutions believe that if there is a situation where it would not be possible to process the cases due to an insufficient number of judges, they will “request a delegation” from the Supreme Court of the FBiH.

Tihomir Jurko, Deputy Chief Prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office of FBiH, explains that in a situation when a court does not have the capacity to prosecute a certain case, it may request from the FBiH’s

Supreme Court to delegate that case to another court.

“When the Prosecution completes their investigation and raises the indictment, it must be raised by th Prosecution of Gorazde before their Cantonal Court. If the court does not have a sufficient number of judges, then it requests from the Supreme Court to delegate the case to another court in the FBiH,” explains Jurko.

According to Jurko, there are no official criteria by which it is determined to which court a particular case would be delegated. However, he points out that the Supreme Court endeavours that the cases should be transferred to the nearest court.

Although the VSTV says that they work on the definition of capacities that are needed for prosecuting war crimes cases in all courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, they told BIRN that they have not made any decisions regarding expansion of the Cantonal Court in Gorazde.

The Cantonal Ministry of Justice says that “the request for funds for the additional judges at the Cantonal Court in Gorazde has not been submitted”, and neither is it envisaged in the current budget.

In addition to the insufficient number of judges, the court in Gorazde is faced with a lack of other human and material resources.

“We all are judges with many years of experience. It would not be difficult for us to work on war crimes cases. They are not that heavy as they require a special approach. However you must have the conditions to receive the public, a large number of defence attorneys and witnesses,” explains Kuljuh.

For now, Kuljuh sees the solution to this problem in the delegation of cases from Gorazde to another cantonal court.