Police fined activists who on Saturday morning brought a horse in front of the office of Bosnia’s international administrator to urge him to intervene after an alleged corruption scandal in the judiciary, named “Shoeing (the horse),” rocked Bosnia.
Stefan Blagic, a member of the Restart non-governmental organization, was fined for not providing adequate transport for their horse which they had put a shoe on in front of the office.
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Members of Restart and Account, another NGO, came to request Bosnia’s top international official to do something about the President of the country’s High Judicial and Prosecutorial Commission (HJPC), Milan Tegeltija,who was secretly recorded speaking to a businessman he met in a coffee shop about speeding up a case.
After splitting with Tegeltija, the businessman, who recorded the footage, is seen paying a policeman who arranged the meeting a significant amount of money. The policeman said the money was for “shoeing” Tegeltija, meaning paying the HJPC President for the favour.
After the video was published, the HJPC, the only institution in the country authorized to appoint and discipline judges, prosecutors as well as its own members, stood behind its boss and rejected a disciplinary complaint against him as well as a request for him to be suspended pending the investigation.
This means there is nothing anyone in the country can do about Tegeltija in terms of dismissing or trying him.
This outraged Bosnians nearly more than the video itself and many point to the country’s top international official, High Representative Valentin Inzko, an Austrian diplomat who technically could fire Tegeltija and his entire Council.
Such power was given to him by the 1995 peace agreement that ended Bosnia’s war. However, he has not used it for years. Now is the time to do so, claims the NGO “Restart,” whose members brought the horse in front of Inzko’s office.
“We have had enough of the international community expressing some surprise and concern. We came here to demand that they take concrete action. Gentlemen, take concrete action or leave this country. If you will not protect the rule of law and a just state then you are not needed here at all,” said Stefan Blagic, from ‘Restart’.
“I think that the moment the judiciary leaves the courts and judicial institutions and goes to coffee shops is the moment when the state ends,” said Eldin Karic, from the ‘Account’ NGO.
The activist called the fine that needs to be paid for “ironic.”
“They say the fines were issued for the well-being of the horse, which I think is heavily ironic, as the competent institutions are obviously working for the well-being of the horse and not for the well-being of the people,” Blagic said.
