Representatives of Our party in the Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and the Parliament of Federation of BiH (FBiH), Damir Arnaut and Sabina Cudic, during their visit to Washington, were guests on the TV program Voice of America, and the main topic of their guest appearance was the fight against corruption.
Arnaut spoke about this on the occasion of the recently presented Report of the Temporary Investigation Commission of the House of Representatives for determining the situation in the judicial institutions of BiH.
At the same time, as the president of the mentioned Commission, he pointed out the particularly important fact that representatives from opposition parties from both entities worked on the Report.
”The cooperation of the opposition parties from both entities has shown that a common policy can be made around many things in BiH in order to solve the growing problems. What we see from the Report is that corruption has entered every pore of BiH society and, worst of all, it has entered deep into the judiciary, and if we do not have a functional judiciary, then we cannot eradicate corruption in other segments of society,” Arnaut stated.
He also says that the reason for the trip to Washington is to talk about these issues, sanctions, and the fact that they think it’s a great thing that the United States (U.S.) has finally started a “showdown” with corruption through sanctions that cover the members of all these ruling parties in BiH.
Regarding the discussion on sanctions, Cudic and Arnaut met with Jim O’Brien, the U.S. ambassador for sanctions, at the State Department the day before yesterday. Arnaut also highlighted the security problem that corruption produces.
”Corruption is not only a problem of the judiciary, but also a security threat, it is a threat to the stability of BiH, because Russia, China, and other non-democratic countries use corruption in BiH to come and try to exercise their influence. Sanctions are therefore an extremely effective tool for stability,” Arnaut emphasized.
Cudic emphasized the importance of the fight against corruption for the advancement of BiH on the international level, above all in terms of acquiring candidate status for the European Union (EU).
”It is not only a matter of judicial reform, we have three remaining prerequisites for obtaining candidate status in the EU, the key prerequisite is the law that also concerns the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC) of BiH, and the other two laws are essentially anti-corruption laws. Citizens of BiH should ask themselves why the ruling parties are against these laws?” said Cudic.
She adds that these are not laws with an ethnic prefix, but “they are laws that essentially eliminate corruption from the system of public procurement and from the judiciary by monitoring, among other things, the property of court officials.”
“Imagine judges who don’t want to declare their assets? In order to restore citizens’ trust in the system, to stay in BiH, to invest in BiH, because foreign investors also face a huge problem of corruption, it is necessary to fight against corruption,” Cudic claimed.
Both Cudic and Arnaut pointed out that the change of government in October is key in the fight against corruption, in order to be able to implement the conclusions reached in the Report of the Temporary Reporting Commission, Klix.ba writes.
E.Dz.
