The Municipal Court in Sarajevo ordered a one-month detention for Armin Berberović, responsible for the traffic accident in which he killed Azra Spahić and seriously injured two people while driving under the influence of alcohol and at a speed exceeding the speed limit. The detention decision was made because of the possibility that he would repeat the same crime.
Berberović will spend a month in the Zenica Penitentiary until the procedure continues. Until then, citizens are waiting for concrete solutions, and competent institutions are announcing changes to legal regulations and stricter measures.
Speed, alcohol, narcotics, not having a driver’s license – it’s a deadly combination in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Drivers are often reckless and arrogant, citizens unprotected. The consequences are great, the tragedies are immeasurable, the victims are irreversible, and the punishments for all this are insufficient. This is shown and proven by the devastating numbers of registered drivers without a driver’s license and under the influence of alcohol, just one day after the tragedy. The system seems to have failed again.
“There is a legal loophole according to which – if a month expires after someone’s driver’s license was revoked and we, as an internal affairs authority, determine that there are still unpaid fines, regardless of that fact – we must return the driver’s license. We are asking, it would be good if there were stricter sanctions for driving while intoxicated, defining drunken driving, violent driving”, says Admir Katica, Minister of Internal Affairs of the CS.
Since there is no adequate punishment, there is a long list of those who have returned to committing criminal acts. Once unpunished, it turned out, is repeated. The relevant minister sees the solution in the new law, but says that confiscating the vehicle is key. It is the way to traffic safety and the end for arrogant drivers who successfully use all loopholes in the law and system. Even before, they saw that the vehicles should be confiscated, but they did not get the consent of the Municipal Court. Last year, the Ministry of Internal Affairs requested the confiscation of vehicles 178 times, and the court rejected each request.
“I believe that confiscating any expensive vehicle is a significant method that would discourage such perpetrators from committing further violations of this kind,” Katica believes.
To the minister’s claim that the Municipal Court is hindering the implementation of the vehicle confiscation measure, the defendants responded to our inquiry and addressed the responsibility to the MIA. They say that the judges of the second-instance court took the position that the police authority has the legal authority for a protective measure.
“Consequently, the second-instance court annulled seven decisions in which an order was issued for the temporary confiscation of the case, with the explanation that the temporary measure of confiscation of the case cannot be requested by the request of the authorized body to the court in misdemeanor proceedings because the judge in misdemeanor proceedings is not authorized for issuing such an order. On the basis of the above, the CSMIA is able to issue a protective measure of ‘temporary confiscation of objects’ based on Article 22 of the Law on Police Officers of the Canton of Sarajevo”, according to the Municipal Court in Sarajevo.
A day after the accident in which Azra Spahić was killed, the Government of Sarajevo Canton became active in improving the practice of prevention and sanctions. One of the measures is reducing the speed on the main street. For the profession it is a solution, for citizens it is wrong. The former minister of the Federal Police Administration, Aljoša Čampara, is of the same opinion.
“That is not the solution. It is not the fault of people who drive 50-60 kilometers per hour, it is the fault of maniacs who drive 120-150 kilometers per hour in the evening in an alcoholic or non-alcoholic state,” Čampara assesses.
Although the law is the same, the practice differs from canton to canton. The Zenica-Doboj Canton implements a series of preventive measures, and adequately sanctions the perpetrators of traffic violations. Special measures are defined for repeat offenses. Republika Srpska follows the same practice.
“We confiscate passenger vehicles from multiple returnees in the commission of traffic violations, regardless of ownership of the vehicle. The most common decisions concerning confiscated vehicles are the destruction or sale of the vehicle,” explains Elmedin Fišek, spokesperson of the ZDC Ministry of Interior.
“Those vehicles, that is, funds, should be confiscated from such persons. To you, that is the same as a person who has a weapon, i.e., shoots in a public place, threatens the danger of others, i.e. causes a general danger”, says Milorad Tanasić, court expert in the field of traffic.
The concerns of citizens show that the situation is alarming and that we cannot and must not wait for a new tragedy. Changes are necessary, and whether there will be any in the Canton of Sarajevo will be discussed already tomorrow at the meeting of the representatives of the Municipal Court and the Government of the CS.
