The Attorney Associations of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) and the Republika Srpska (RS) sent a joint statement regarding the latest events related to the verdict in the case “Fadil Novalic et al” and due to the information that appeared in the public even before the verdict itself.
Namely, the Bar Association of the FBiH and the Bar Association of the RS, in the name of preserving the legal profession as an independent professional activity, express serious concern about the latest developments related to the Court of BiH.
At the very beginning, in the official press release, they say that they read and followed the information about the outcome of the verdict in the “Respirators” case, which appeared in the media five or six days before the scheduled hearing for the official announcement of the verdict, and that surprised them.
“Disbelief turned into serious concern and shook confidence in this judicial institution, on the day the verdict was announced and the fact that the sentence was identical to the one the public was aware of through the media, five or six days before the announcement,” they state and continue:
“We have no intention of commenting on the verdict, nor delving into the substantive legal and procedural aspects of this process, but we cannot, as part of the judicial system of BiH, not express our position that such situations introduce additional and deep distrust in the reform of the judiciary and the judiciary in as a whole, but also in the integrity of judges, and seriously violates the right to a fair trial,” say the lawyers.
They believe and expect that the authorized persons in the Court of BiH will carry out checks, how some media found out about the outcome of the process and what kind of verdict will be passed, before the scheduled date of its publication.
At the same time, they drew attention to a recent incident which, they say, concerned the embarrassment of the judge of the Basic Court in Banja Luka. They further state that he addressed the judge of that Court in the most rude and uncivilized manner. Without any justification, in this case, a complete document containing expressions of insult and disparagement of the judge was made public, Klix.ba reports.
