The Minister of Justice of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Davor Bunoza, told reporters after the session of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, from whose agenda the Draft Law on the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina was withdrawn today, that the seat of the appellate department is still disputed.
“The Ministry of Justice of Bosnia and Herzegovina, after several months of not being able to agree on whether it should be East Sarajevo or Banja Luka, we decided to offer a compromise solution, to determine the headquarters within a year, and by then to be where and now, in Sarajevo,” said Minister Bunoza.
Also, he added, there are discussions regarding the criminal jurisdiction of the court if it is a criminal offense committed on the territory of one entity.
“I hear stories, some say they have been expanded, some say they have been reduced. However, the real truth is that they are specified and in accordance with international standards. I was in the prosecutor’s office, I spoke with the relevant representatives of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and asked what the biggest problem is in practice when “You are taking over a case, and it is a criminal offense that was committed on the territory of one entity. In the last 20 years, there have been about thirty such cases,” said the BiH Minister of Justice.
He added that, precisely because of the fact that the current law is arbitrary and unclear, they demanded from the Venice Commission to “clearly specify those situations”.
“We only applied Annex 4 of Dayton and the provision of Article 83 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, under which conditions, for which areas of the criminal offense can be prosecuted. Therefore, the jurisdiction was not reduced, it was not expanded, it is clear and specified,” he said.
He pointed out that every law that was passed, where the Ministry of Justice was the proposer, “represents significant progress for the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, never to the detriment of the entities, nor to the detriment of the constituent nations or others”.
The Minister of Justice of BiH says that, when it comes to the Draft Law on the Court of BiH, they had to clearly write the criminal jurisdiction of the Court of BiH and they had to ensure an independent court of second instance.
“I think that this last version is a compromise and I’m sorry that there is still no will. I hope that we will solve that issue soon,” said Bunoza.
When asked by a journalist what will happen in relation to this law in the coming period, he answered that the law exists, and that it can be agreed upon within ten minutes and can be found at the session of the Council of Ministers of BiH.
He expressed his satisfaction that the Council of Ministers of BiH today adopted amendments to the Law on Salaries and Other Remunerations in Judicial and Prosecutorial Institutions at the level of BiH, Fena news agency writes.
