Bosnian Witness Protection Rapped
The OSCE warns failures are jeopardising their right to security and privacy.
Bosnian Witness Protection Rapped
The OSCE warns failures are jeopardising their right to security and privacy.
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, warned the Bosnian authorities last week that “urgent steps” should be taken to protect witnesses in war crimes trials - a problem IWPR drew attention to in a recent report .
"Witness testimony is the lynchpin of successful prosecutions in war crimes cases, but not enough is being done to ensure that trials take place without violating the rights of victims,” said Valery Perry, the acting programme director of OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Hercegovina, BiH.
“These failures are jeopardising the right to life, security and privacy of witnesses, and can have particularly devastating effects on those who are also the victims in these cases."
On May 24, the OSCE mission in Bosnia released a report with their findings on witness protection and support in Bosnian war crimes trials, a year after the National Strategy for War Crimes Processing was adopted.
The strategy document, which was adopted in December 2008 by the Council of Ministers of BiH, consists of a series of goals and recommendations outlining how all existing war crimes cases in the country should be processed.
It also contains a roadmap for dramatically improving the availability of witness protection and support services. However, according to the OSCE, to date little progress has been made in that regard.
"BiH is not yet taking sufficient steps to protect witnesses from harassment and violence and to ensure their participation in war crimes trials with dignity, and has yet to meet its own targets under the National Strategy for War Crimes Processing to improve this situation," Perry said at the OSCE’s report launch last week.
The report recounts instances where the names of protected witnesses were knowingly released to the public; where witnesses informed the court they had been the target of threats, intimidation or bribes in relation to their testimony and the judiciary failed to respond; and where victim-witnesses testifying at the cantonal and district level received no psycho-social support in relation to their testimony.
"The failure to improve protection and support services for witnesses and victims is the most worrying aspect of the overall slow rate of implementation of the National Strategy for War Crimes Processing," Perry said.
"A society in which citizens do not have faith in the justice system is a society in which the rule of law cannot be consolidated."
According to Nela Sefic, legal adviser to the human rights department of the OSCE mission in BiH, "Witness protection is
currently only being implemented at the BiH State Court. However, not even that court provides sufficient quality of witness protection.
"Entity courts don't even have separate waiting rooms, no special entrances for witnesses, no equipment for video-link voice and image transposition."
Milena Popadic, an assistant minister at the BiH justice ministry, told IWPR that in early 2009 an expert working group was established by the Council of Ministers to supervise the implementation of the war crimes trials strategy and monitor progress, together with international and local NGOs.
However, according to Popadic, any proposed changes to the current witness protection legislation – deemed inadequate by the OSCE - would fall under the responsibility of the security ministry.
"The security ministry has to prepare legislation on witness protection, with the assistance from other institutions, including the justice ministry," she said.
Popadic added that the security ministry prepared a draft law on witness protection in 2008, but it was not adopted by the BiH parliament.
“The security ministry will have to work again on the solution of this problem and the ministry of justice will be involved, too,” she said.
Velma Saric is an IWPR-trained reporter in The Hague.
