The international community has been urged to intervene, one more time, by President of the State Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Meddzida Kreso, to save the institution. It hosts the War Crimes Chamber, set up to try cases in Bosnia in accordance with practice at the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

By Nidzara Ahmetasevic, Sarajevo

Speaking on Bosnian television on February 2, Kreso said the international intervention was “necessary,” as Bosnian Serb politicians are trying to put a stop to the court, through a bill to be debated in parliament on February 16. But there is little chance this proposed legislation will be accepted, according to president of the constitutional commission at the State Parliament, Sefik Dzaferovic.

“Serious threat”
Nevertheless, the threat should be taken seriously, says former deputy prosecutor at the ICTY, David Tolbert. Currently president of the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), he called last Wednesday for the European Union to help a Court “under serious threat,” in an appeal published in Balkan Insight. “A sustained campaign to undermine the court’s work has included budget cuts, the stalling of the National War Crimes Strategy—a system envisaged to complete the majority of Bosnian war crimes cases within 15 years—and a relentless campaign of public attacks. This onslaught has now culminated in the demand by Republika Srpska’s parliament to have the court abolished”, Tolbert wrote. In its last annual report, Amnesty International confirmed how “verbal attacks on the justice system by high-ranking politicians further undermined the country’s efforts to prosecute war crimes cases”.

Furthermore, the ICTJ president believes it could be in the international community’s self-interest to save the Bosnian model, as “the War Crimes Chamber is widely recognised as a model of success in the ongoing discussion on how to ensure successful complementarity between national judiciaries and the International Criminal Court (ICC)”.
Kreso and Tolbert stress that, while the State Court was set up in 2004 by the Office of the High Representative (OHR) in Bosnia and is supported by international donors, the court and the country itself have been dependent on international aid since the end of the war in 1995.

International judges have been working alongside locals at the War Crimes Chamber since 2005. Until the end of 2010, every chamber of the court was made up of 1 international and 2 local judges. Whereas the internationals were supposed to leave in December 2009 after a 5-year mandate, the OHR decided to keep them until the end of 2012 “to secure work on the war crimes prosecution.” Today, 1 international judge works alongside 12 local judges in the first instance war crimes cases. 3 other international judges work at the appeal chambers, where they also deal with organised crime and terrorism. Four international prosecutors are involved in war crimes cases.

Biased against Serbs?
But now, two political parties from Republika Srpska, the majority Bosnian Serb entity, propose that the State Parliament abandon the State Court and prosecution. They claim the court is biased against Serbs and demand that war crimes be prosecuted by each entity as before. One of the parties is the Serb Democratic Party (SDS) of Radovan Karadzic, currently on trial at the ICTY. The other is the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), the ruling party .

The State Court was established in 2002 and started work in 2005 on war crimes cases. Since then, 79 final judgements have been issued for 110 people. Most of them were indicted for crimes against humanity or war crimes against civilians, while 26 were charged with genocide. The biggest case was against 11 former members of the Army of Republika Srpska, indicted for genocide at Srebenica. 6 out of 11 were found guilty. According to official data in 2010, prosecutors were involved in 365 cases involving 1,165 persons.

However, the Court in Sarajevo has dealt with more cases than in any similar court in the region. According to Amnesty International, Croatia prosecutes on average fewer than 18 cases a year. In Serbia, Human Rights Watch concluded in its last yearly report that war crimes prosecutions have proceeded “steadily”, while the War Crimes Chamber faces “increasing criticism for limited progress” and indictments are being dropped due to lack of evidence.

Although a “National war crimes strategy” was adopted by Bosnia in 2008 to speed up the judicial process, so far it has hardly been implemented and the State Court faces an estimated backlog of more than 10, 000 war crimes cases. “This matter is not only about the court and the prosecutor’s office”, says Kreso. “This is in fact a hint towards a much more serious plan to abolish all other state-level institutions, such as the Justice Ministry, the Defence Ministry, and SIPA [State Information and Protection Agency].” Since the SDS and SNSD started their new campaign against the State Court, international officials in Bosnia have spoken out in support of the institution, but no concrete steps have followed.