The functional establishment of POSKOK is one of the most significant results of the work of the Government of the Federation in the past year. The public follows the investigations of this body with special attention. Will the promises that there are no privileged ones be fulfilled and that no one who abuses public resources and position will be above the state and the law?
Numerous strategies – dispute solutions
The fight against organized crime and corruption in Bosnia and Herzegovina must be systemic. There are many measures and strategies to fight corruption, but in practice the solutions are slow and pending, and the consequence is widespread high corruption. Proof of this is the fact that Bosnia and Herzegovina is the second country in Europe, according to the Corruption Perception Index, says professor at the Faculty of Criminology, Criminology and Security Studies at UNSA Eldan Mujanović.
“Every day we witness a large number of political office bearers who are in an obvious conflict of interest connected to various economic and financial power centers with which they and their family members and their companies do business and so on,” Mujanović points out.
Error in the steps?
Due to legislative deficiencies or their inefficient application, sanctioning is slow or becomes another case awaiting a judicial epilogue.
We need systemic reforms, says Transparency International in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“It is not only about the need to reform the judiciary, but also the entire system of public procurement, concessions, conflicts of interest, protection of corruption whistleblowers, especially in the Federation, where there is no law and the Law on Conflict of Interest is not applied in the Federation, and we see the fatal consequences of such a situation,” emphasizes Srđan Traljić, manager of public relations at Transparency International in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
With the aim of speeding up the resolution of court cases, as well as a more intensive fight against corruption, the Special Department for the fight against corruption and organized crime in FBiH – POSKOK – was created. Although initially understaffed, POSKOK took over 731 cases from the cantonal prosecutor’s offices, of which 449 cases were from the Sarajevo Canton Prosecutor’s Office. Downloading so many items is a mistake in steps, according to security expert Sandi Dizdarević.
“This means that those six prosecutors are initially overloaded with the number of cases. Another problem is the new cases of corruption, where today anyone who is dissatisfied with the work of any personification or institution – reports corruption to this very department, which puts them at the crossroads of working on old cases, which are prioritized due to obsolescence and due to elements, and the very fact that there are six prosecutors shows the inability of the state to objectively fight this scourge”, Dizdarević assesses.
The impotence of the state
POSKOK explicitly stated that in order to preserve the integrity of the investigation, they cannot provide a list of the cases taken over, but the fact is that some cases have been in the investigation status for a long period of time. Accumulation of cases and non-implementation of laws show the impotence of the state and its institutions, says the former Minister of Internal Affairs of Sarajevo Canton, Nermin Pećanac.
“You can’t fill holes in laws that favor crime, that is, against those who fight against crime, with people who have no idea about it. People from the profession should give their word here – in order to shorten processes that last a long time and to fight all kinds of, first of all, institutional crime. Someone can’t sit in an office, rewrite something and add something of their own, it should be done by the profession, and then let the parliament have the last word,” says Pećanac.
In the shadow of around 700 indictments and established cases, the suspects are waiting, and the institutions are on the test of whether they will carry out justice or wait for the cases to expire.
