Finally, after years of adoption procedures, the Law on Amendments to the Criminal Code of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, after being published in the Official Gazette of FBiH 76/14 in late September, entered into force and has become legally binding regulation in this entity, told FENA today proponent of this Law, a member of the House of Representatives of the FBiH Parliament Jasmin Duvnjak.
He reminds that the essence of the amendment to the Criminal Code is in Chapter XV – Acts against the constitutional order, in Article 163, which states: “A person who causes national, racial, religious hatred, discord and intolerance with public denial or justification of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes established by final judgments of the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia or domestic courts, shall be punished by three months to three years of imprisonment.”
“For the first time in BiH and in the region, there is a legal regulation that allows persons who deny genocide or war crimes to be prosecuted and punished with prison sentence. I am satisfied that, until the final adoption of the state law on sanctioning public denial of genocide and all adjudicated war crimes, whoever committed them and on whose behalf, at least in the Federation of BiH this law has entered into force that will sanction all nationalistic and chauvinistic actions and severely penalize them, that will prevent manipulation of the victims in the daily politics, and that will protect the dignity of the victims of genocide and all war crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the period 1991 to 1995,” said Duvnjak.
He points out that the denial of genocide and all final war crimes verdicts in public life is not a mere expression of opinion, but it is in fact a new crime, especially to the victims and their families.
“With these amendments to the Criminal Code of BiH and the creation of educational system that will affirm the truth based on facts (final judgments), I believe that we will create conditions for building a better, safer and happier future for all peoples and citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” said Duvnjak.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2007 rendered the final judgment that found that genocide had been committed in Srebrenica in 1995.
The Srebrenica genocide and crimes against humanity committed on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina have been determined in the final and binding judgments of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The judgments have resulted with the adoption of the Resolution on Srebrenica in the European Parliament, which has not yet received support in the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In the state parliament, the draft law on prohibition of denial, minimization, justification or approval of the Holocaust, genocide and crimes against humanity has been put on several occasions in the parliamentary procedure, but unfortunately, it has never received the necessary support.
(Source: Fena)
