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These stipulations have been outlined in the revised Rulebook on Access to Information under the Control of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which has been in use since April 7.
Although the rulebook states that recording and publishing audio-video recordings must be approved by the president of the state court, it is not clear how the level of public interest in trials will be determined.
With regards to war crimes trials, only complete recordings of the verdict can be obtained. In other instances, a ten-minute clip is typically distributed to media outlets. However, these clips are usually unusable for journalists. This practice has been applied at the state court for the past three years.
Based on the response the state court gave to BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina on this issue, public interest in a trial is determined based on the number of media outlets requesting audio or video recordings of a particular hearing.
Acting upon the proposal of the state prosecution, the state court has issued a complete recording of the corruption trial of judge Azra Miletic, which was held in late February.
A statement released from the state court reads “The issue of recording the case of Azra Miletic et al. is not an exception, since entire recordings have also been issued in other cases of justifiable public and media interest, such as the Bosnic Husein case, the Lijanovici case, and the Gibraltar case.”
However, entire recordings of trials are only released if they deal with terrorism, organized crime and corruption. War crimes are treated differently. BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina requests footage from war crimes trials on a daily basis, but only receives ten minute recordings from the court. However, the law states that the trials are open to the public.
