Bosnia Appoints First Female Chief State Prosecutor

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s judicial overseer, the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council, HJPC, elected Gordana Tadic on Wednesday as the new chief state prosecutor for a six-year term in office.

Tadic has headed the Bosnian prosecution in an acting role for the past two-and-a-half years since the suspension of the former chief prosecutor Goran Salihovic, who is currently on trial for alleged corruption.

Presenting her platform, Tadic proposed that the state prosecution’s departments for organised crime and corruption be merged.

“We shall merge these two departments in order to increase the efficiency and work of the prosecution, because they deal with similar cases. We have an increased number of cases related to human trafficking and illegal migration. We are planning to establish a section for fighting human trafficking and illegal migrations as well,” she said.

On war crimes prosecutions, Tadic said she planned to continue working on the most complex cases and refer the less complex ones to entity-level prosecutions.

She also said she was planning to improve regional cooperation and continue collaborating with Hague prosecutor Serge Brammertz.

HJPC president Milan Tegeltija said that five candidates had been interviewed and Tadic was judged the best because of the results she has achieved over the past two-and-a-half years.

Tegeltija argued that Tadic should have done more on corruption, but said that a positive development was evident in the field of war crimes, where “cases which had been dealt with for years have now been solved”.

The vice president of the HJPC, Ruzica Jukic, said Tadic had the longest prosecutorial experience, which made her the most competent candidate.

Jukic called Tadic “a very honest person”, and suggested that as Bosnia and Herzegovina’s first female chief prosecutor, she would “return confidence to the judiciary”.

However Goran Nezirovic, a judge with the Federation entity’s Supreme Court, said that Tadic failed to present concrete measures and programmes.

“She did not present answers to my questions either,” he said.

Since the Bosnian state prosecution was first established, none of its chief prosecutors has held on to their job until the end of their six-year term in office.

Tadic’s predecessor Salihovic was suspended because of disciplinary action and a criminal investigation into allegations that he misused his powers by ensuring that investigations into Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik were stopped.