Fifty members of High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC) have spent more than 1.7 million KM on per diems, accommodation, travel expenses and flat-rate attendance allowances in the past 10 years according to the list of earnings that was published by this judicial body.
Some of the presidents and members of the body which appoints, trains and disciplines judges and prosecutors in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) have earned more than 1,500 KM a month on average.
Former president and a member Milorad Novković tops the list with 157,000 KM earned during nine years.
For example, Obren Bužanin, a justice of the RS Supreme Court and Zijad Kadrić, an appeal judge in Brčko District, earned more than 1,500 KM a month on average as members.
The council’s official say that the allowances were paid out in accordance with the decisions of the Council of Ministers related to HJPC allowances dated 2005 and 2010.
According to a 2005 decision, all members received a monthly flat fee of 170 KM for the preparations and attendance of sittings, while the president received 420 KM for the same purpose, and for the preparations of meetings with a director of the Secretariat and for attending to other duties. HJPC’s members were also entitled to another 100 KM or 150 KM for commission work and other activities.
A decision from 2010, increased the president’s flat rate allowance to 1,300 KM a month. The vice-presidents and members who are employed full-time were to receive the flat-rate allowance of 1,000 KM, while other members received a daily allowance of 200 KM.
The Council’s sittings are held once a month and last for two days on average.
The 2010 decision of the Council of Ministers says that duties includes “an average time needed for a member of the Council to travel from his or her work place to a place where he or she would be performing duties for the Council and not longer than eight hours a day.”
The Council is made of 15 members including judges, prosecutors and lawyers, while two of its members are persons who do not serve in the judiciary. They have a four-year term and may serve two terms at the most.
This April, before publishing the salaries, the Council opened its sittings to the public who can follow them from another room via a video link.
