The reason why some key reforms in Bosnia’s judiciary were not implemented is that certain institutions have obstructed it, the head of Bosnia’s top judicial Institution told N1 on Monday after the news emerged that the Europan Commission (EC) might cut funding to his institution, the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC).
According to a statement EC Spokesperson, Ana Pisonero Hernandez, sent to N1, key reforms in Bosnia’s judiciary are being resisted from within the country’s judicial system and due to “limited results on the objectives of judicial reform,” the EC is currently reviewing the effectiveness of its financial support allocated to the HJCP, which is in charge of those reforms.
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The HJCP is the institution which oversees the judiciary in Bosnia and, among other things, appoints and disciplines judicial officials.
HJCP President, Milan Tegeltija, told N1 that he “shares the frustration” regarding the lack of reforms but that the EC is not blaming the right institution for it. He said that the EC’s stance is mostly a result of “obstruction of reform activities which we undertook in the past two years.”
Tegeltija listed several reform acts that were adopted, in accordance with the peer review recommendations by the EC – including a new set of rules regarding the naming of those in judicial positions, on collecting data on the financial situation and property of those serving in the judiciary and on evaluating them.
“Two of these three of the most important reform acts have been revoked against our will at this time, by a decision of the Agency for Personal Data Protection and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and that is something we cannot have any influence over,” he said.
He explained that the problem regarding the integrity of judicial officials was that it involved putting together guidelines for collecting and processing the financial statements of such officials and that the Agency for Personal Data Protection banned its implementation following a complaint by certain associations of judges in the country who argued that there was no legal ground for it.
Tegeltija said that one the one hand, “the frustration of the EU is understandable and we share it as well, as we warned about eventual consequences of obstructing the reforms that are being undertaken,” but on the other hand, he argued that it is not fair to blame the HJCP for the halt in the reforms since the institution “invested a lot of effort” to adopt the reform acts in the past two years and has no control over those obstructing it.
He stressed that the HJCP is powerless in this case.
“We will thank them (the EC) for their cooperation so far and continue (working), because the HJPC, courts and prosecutor’s offices in Bosnia and Herzegovina are institutions which have their funding fully included in the budgets of various government levels, and there will be no halt or problem in the work of the HJCP, court and prosecutor’s offices,” he concluded.
