The Law on Confiscation and Management of Assets, which is one of the two key laws needed to prevent Bosnia and Herzegovina from being placed on the Moneyval grey list, is in the final stages of drafting and could be submitted for adoption in the next ten to 15 days – Minister of Justice of Bosnia and Herzegovina Davor Bunoza told FENA.
Bunoza said that the working group has been working on this legal solution for more than three years and that the final version is currently being harmonized.
“I believe that we will have the final version of the law in the next ten to 15 days, because it will be harmonized and after that the law should be in the adoption procedure,” said Bunoza.
He emphasized that one of the key contentious issues is the management of permanently confiscated assets.
“I must emphasize that this is actually a contentious issue regarding the registration of property that has been confiscated and who should manage that property, whether it would be an agency at the state level. We are trying to find a solution and that is one of the reasons why this law has been worked on for a long time,” said Bunoza.
According to him, there are several proposals in the working group on which institution should be responsible for managing confiscated property.
“There are several proposals in the working group – one is that it should be an agency at the state level, and the other is that it should be an office at the level of the Ministry of Justice of BiH that would coordinate with entity agencies. The most important thing for us is to have a functional law that can be applied in practice without any difficulties,” said Bunoza.
Speaking about the essence of the law, Bunoza explained that it treats confiscated property acquired through a criminal offense based on final judgments of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“Final judgments of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina will enable persons to have property acquired through a criminal offense confiscated, to have it registered in BiH or in some other way determined by the working group, and then to manage that property, whether it is sold or placed under the management of certain organizations. If it is sold, the funds would go further into the state budget,” he said.
The minister added that there is a possibility that the law will be sent to the procedure even if it is not fully harmonized.
“We are aware that there is a possibility that this law will not be one hundred percent harmonized. However, in order to avoid harmful consequences for Bosnia and Herzegovina, we will propose the law and leave it to parliamentarians to possibly offer better solutions through amendments,” said Bunoza.
On Thursday, the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina established another law at its session that is needed to prevent BiH from being placed on the Moneyval grey list – the Draft Law on Restricting the Disposal of Assets for the Purpose of Preventing Terrorism, Financing Terrorism and Financing the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
“It would certainly be very bad for our economy, or rather the banking sector, to end up on the grey list. I hope that we will do everything we can to avoid that,” concluded Bunoza.
Moneyval, the Council of Europe body that assesses countries’ compliance with international standards in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing, has previously warned that Bosnia and Herzegovina needs to improve its legislative framework in this area.
Being placed on the so-called grey list would mean increased international supervision of financial transactions from BiH, which could negatively affect the banking sector, international financial flows and the overall business environment in the country.
