Bosnia’s Council of Ministers unanimously adopted the Revised National War Crimes Processing Strategy on Thursday which is supposed to speed up court proceedings in war crimes cases and represents one of the priorities regarding Bosnia’s path toward EU membership.
Bosnia adopted in 2008 a National War Crimes Processing Strategy which said that the most complex cases will be completed at the state level within seven years while all other cases will be transferred to courts at the level of Bosnia’s two semi-autonomous entities and completed by 2023.
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The seven-year deadline expired in 2015 and the most complex war crimes cases were not completed, which is why a revised strategy was prepared in order to disburden the state court.
According to Bosnia’s Justice Minister, Josip Grubesa, the reason why the strategy was not adopted earlier was a two-year discussion in regard to an Annex, which was now adopted.
“It is not a big document, but it defines that we asked the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina to submit some statistical data related to the number of persons who have been convicted, the number of persons whose cases are on appeal, the number of persons who are under investigation, the number of persons against whom the investigation has been suspended, as well as on those for whom no court procedure has been initiated since 2004,” Grubesa told the media following the session.
“Another fact that defines the strategy in more detail is that we have introduced the institution of the Court and the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina and international representatives as non-voting observers,” he added.
Grubesa pointed out that the last part of the Annex is on regional cooperation and that it will involve working with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the Prosecutor's Office in The Hague.
By adopting the Strategy, Bosnia secured that it will receive the planned funds from the European Commission and everyone in the judiciary will be satisfied as they will all remain employed, he said.
When asked how regional cooperation will be maintained, given that some countries do not recognise certain crimes that were committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Grubesa said “we cannot influence the legislation of neighbouring countries, but we can when it comes to problems within Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
The minister said that he would have been happy if this issue was the first one to be resolved, adding that there are many ongoing war crimes trials and that the new Strategy will enable the lower courts to tend to them in order to speed up those processes.
He also pointed out that adopting the strategy was one of the eight priorities the European Commission put forward in regard to Bosnia’s application for EU candidate status.
