Half of the prosecutor's offices in Bosnia and Herzegovina did not initiate a single investigation into criminal acts of high corruption in three years, according to the "Analysis of the Efficiency of Prosecution of High Corruption" in BiH presented by Transparency International in BiH (TI BiH) today in Sarajevo. Only one out of nine prosecutors working on cases of economic crime and corruption in 2023 launched an investigation for high corruption or only 0.11 percent.

The bad indicators of the work of the judiciary in combating high corruption are complemented by the fact that in nine out of a total of 18 prosecutor's offices in Bosnia and Herzegovina, not a single investigation into criminal acts of high corruption was initiated in the period from 2021 to 2023, the Center for the Promotion of Civil Society (CPCD) announced.

Although it was expected that the responsibility for prosecuting high corruption in the RS would be transferred from the district offices to the Special Department of the RS Public Prosecutor's Office, the fact that this institution in a period of four years had only four reports in its work and three indictments for high corruption speaks of a general deficiency results, it is stated.

In addition to the fact that corruption is not prosecuted, the criminal policy for these most serious crimes is too lenient, so from 2021 to 2023, within the framework of 18 convictions in cases of high corruption, courts in BiH imposed prison sentences in only 11 cases, while in seven judgments imposed a suspended sentence, the TI BiH stated.

These data were presented in the TI BiH analysis, which was presented during the conference “How to more successfully process corruption cases” held in Sarajevo.
Norwegian Ambassador to BiH Olav Reinertsen said at the opening of the conference that civil society has a key role in monitoring the government, informing citizens and ensuring the implementation of legal provisions.”The diagnosis of the situation in the judiciary has been clear for years if not decades – the state of complete institutional captivity of the judiciary by political elites and organized crime that work in symbiosis. Unfortunately, as a reaction to this complex problem, we are faking judicial reform, which quite expectedly results in a further deterioration of the situation in the judiciary,” said Srđan Blagovčanin, chairman of the TI BiH Board of Directors, during his address.

High-level corruption in Bosnia and Herzegovina is mostly not prosecuted, and when it does happen, the judiciary in BiH mainly solves minor cases, while large corruption cases often go unanswered, and a disproportionately mild criminal policy accompanies all this. Such a situation, in addition to seriously undermining trust in the judiciary, which is full of scandals, leads to the destruction of institutions, and the establishment of complete political control over them, which ultimately leads to the ultimate collapse of the concept of the rule of law, is one of the messages of the conference.

The conference, which was organized by Transparency International in Bosnia and Herzegovina with the support of the SMART Balkan project financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Norway, gathered representatives of the judiciary and other relevant actors to develop concrete solutions for the efficiency of judicial processes in BiH.