Bosnia and Herzegovina is once again approaching financial isolation and a possible return to the Moneyval grey list due to political blockades and the failure to adopt the Law on the Management of Illegally Acquired Assets. Without a registry of beneficial owners, effective control of cash flows and a unified management system, the state remains vulnerable to corruption, money laundering and organized crime.
Criminals make money, the state confiscates – claim the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH and specify – the results are visible.
“Last year, we proposed the permanent confiscation of property gains in organized crime cases in the amount of 29 million BAM,” said the Chief Prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina Milanko Kajganić.
Confiscated from crime, but the state does not have a system to manage it. There are ad hoc solutions that imply that the property is managed by different institutions – without unified records and control.
Blockades from RS
And the entities have a system – laws, agencies and management, but when the same model needs to be applied to the state level, the process of passing a law on the management of illegally acquired property is stalled, and even the gray list of Moneyval, as a possible sanction, does not mean progress.
The Director of the Agency for the Management of Confiscated Property of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina Emir Bašić pointed out the reasons for the standstill.
“The adoption of the law is being blocked by colleagues from the RS Ministry of Justice because they do not accept that property that the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina permanently seizes in criminal proceedings is the permanent property of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” said Bašić.
The Director of the RS Agency for the Management of Confiscated Property Svjetlana Kusić said that the entity’s position is different.
“The proposal is that all property be owned by the entity and the Brčko District,” said Kusić.
Who manages the property
Property and the state – for RS, are non-existent categories, therefore this law is blocked. The compromise offered is an Office at the Ministry of Justice of Bosnia and Herzegovina instead of an agency, coordination instead of a system, which is a political solution for the profession, where the property would be managed by entity agencies after the final judgments of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Professor at the Faculty of Criminalistics, Criminology and Security Studies of the University of Sarajevo Eldan Mujanović warned of the possible consequences of such an approach.
“The principle is being introduced through the back door that entity institutions, conditionally speaking, service state institutions. This sets up a relationship in which entities have supremacy over state institutions. If property is permanently seized, it should be managed by the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, not entity institutions. This represents a derogation from the state and its institutions,” said Mujanović.
Risk of sanctions
One law, two concepts – strengthening the state versus challenging its jurisdiction, thus once again denying the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. They are demanding the deletion of the article of the draft law which states that whoever fails to act on the order of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and fails to submit the requested information during the procedure for the confiscation of property gained through a criminal offense – will be fined up to 200,000 BAM. They also find it unacceptable that the funds from permanently confiscated property, as well as the income from its use, go to the state treasury.
At the same time, due to the lack of political agreement, millions of BAM end up as wasted value, without control and with the risk of sanctions from the Moneyval grey list.
