The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina in its open letter of 28 January, called upon competent authorities to put in place a uniform regulation covering the submission, verification and processing of financial statements of judicial office holders. It is a constructive approach which alongside already ongoing processes should lead to a credible integrity checks.
In the Analytical Report accompanying the Commission Opinion on BiH Application for EU Membership, it is noted that “the absence of an effective system of submission, verification and processing of financial statements seriously affects the credibility of the efforts to strengthen the integrity within the judiciary”.
Integrity is key to an independent, impartial, accountable, professional and efficient judiciary. The Experts’ Report on Rule of Law Issues in BiH released in December 2019 indicates that “in order to regain trust of the population, the judiciary needs to immediately show full transparency and determination to establish a rigorous and credible system of checks of asset declarations of judicial office holders”.
The European Union supports all efforts to operationalise the findings of the Expert’s Report of strengthening transparency of the judiciary. We call upon all relevant authorities to take urgent actions in order to enhance integrity of the judiciary in BiH.
