Category: Judiciary

Dušanka Mihajlović from Mlječanice shot and wounded her husband in 1992. During yet another of their ongoing arguments, her husband Vlado grabbed her hair and

Branko Dobranić was convicted of sexually abusing teen-age relatives but judges went easy on him in sentencing. Activists say abusers frequently get lenient treatment from police, prosecutors and judges.

New laws are not enough to stop domestic violence. The laws need to be strengthened and police, prosecutors and judges must work harder to enforce them, activists say.

The murder of one unhappy wife at the hands of her husband shows why domestic violence still flourishes. Women, especially if their husbands have money, find little sympathy for their complaints and if they rebel even their own relatives see it as reasonable that they should be punished. Legally, husbands who hurt their wives are dealt with leniently.

Bosnian state court authorities say they vindicated former international Judge Gerald Gahima of the War Crimes Chamber of any wrong-doing in his native Rwanda, but they won’t say how they had the authority to decide law in another country or just how they went about making their determination of innocence.

On Friday, representatives from more than 30 countries will meet in Brussels to discuss a request by the BiH government for €43 million to continue funding the State Court of BiH, which oversees the War Crimes Chamber and for a new prison.

As the War Crimes Chamber in the State Court of BiH gears up to prosecute accused war criminals, lawyers whose job it is to defend the accused say the system is not fair. They say they are hampered by inadequate resources, poor pay and legal restrictions that have driven away many lawyers. The problems could mean that the fair trials will never happen in the chamber that has yet to gain the trust of the public.

Less than five months after British lawyer Paul Richard Garlick was sworn in as an international judge for the War Crime Chamber at the State Court, he has resigned from his two-year post for professional reasons.

For the second time in two weeks, an international judge has announced that he is leaving the new BiH War Crimes Chamber. Top court official Branko Peric is worried about these departures will weaken public faith in the judiciary and he says it is time for Bosnians to take over more power from foreign authorities in the selection of their international judges.

Court officials and others say witness protection is the biggest challenge facing the court system. And while the Court of BiH’s new War Crimes Chamber has a program for protecting witnesses during trials, most war criminals will be tried in district and cantonal courts that have virtually no protection at all.

With war crimes trials coming home to BiH, defense attorneys say they must cope with low pay and courts biased against their clients. Prosecutors are just as unhappy as they must review 5,900 cases for possible prosecution and put up with suspects who are considered heroes by potential witnesses and even the police who are supposed to investigate them. The problems on both sides call into question the credibility of the new system.

The newly constructed Court of BiH represents to many a new standard in justice but to many Serbs they know the building as a former Bosniak military court. They claim they were tortured and sentenced there and military court officials are working now in the reformed State Court system.