Judicial institutions in BiH continue to show a low level of transparency, which makes the fight against corruption more difficult and undermines public trust, according to the latest report by Transparency International BiH.
The Cantonal Court in Zenica, the Prosecutor’s Office of the Brčko District of BiH, the Municipal Court in Zenica, and the Supreme Court of the Republika Srpska are among the best-rated judicial institutions in BiH according to the Judicial Transparency Index, while the worst-rated institutions according to this parameter are also those that show a worrying unwillingness of institutions to seriously confront corruption.
The best transparency index scores were recorded by the Cantonal Court in Zenica (index 87), the Prosecutor’s Office of the Brčko District of BiH (85), and the Municipal Court in Tuzla (82), while the top five also include the Prosecutor’s Office of the Zenica-Doboj Canton (81) and the Supreme Court of the RS (80). On the other hand, the worst rated institutions include the Municipal Courts in Kalesija and Sarajevo and the Basic Court in Doboj (30), as well as the Basic Court in Zvornik (29) and the Municipal Court in Srebrenik (26), as the least open institutions in the BiH judiciary.
The results of the Judicial Transparency Index survey, which measures the level of proactive, reactive and transparency towards the media, show that one third, or 32 out of a total of 94 courts and prosecutors’ offices at all levels in BiH, do not respond at all to media inquiries about their cases.
In addition, 50 percent of prosecutors’ offices in Bosnia and Herzegovina ignored media inquiries about the content of appeals against verdicts, while 62 percent of courts refused to provide or completely ignored media inquiries about the verdicts they issued.
Media requests for the provision of audiovisual materials, recordings and access to indictments are most often rejected, and this attitude towards the media further complicates public oversight of the work of the judicial system.
The Transparency Index assesses the availability of information on websites, responses to access to information requests, and cooperation between institutions and the media, with each of the three components carrying a certain number of points (52, 30, and 18), the sum of which makes up the overall score on a scale from 0 to 100.
Overall, the analysis shows a slight improvement compared to 2022 – more than half of access to information requests were resolved within the legal deadline with complete responses, and the number of cases of ignoring requests decreased from 16 percent to 12.8 percent. However, the growing trend of rejected requests is worrying, which may indicate an increasingly closed approach by institutions.
An additional reason for concern is that judicial institutions treat applicants differently – TI BiH received complete responses within the legal deadline in more than 70 percent of cases, while citizens received the same information in only 35 percent of cases. A third of citizens’ requests remain unanswered, and every tenth is rejected, which indicates discrimination and systemic denial of the public’s right to information.
Proactive transparency has further deteriorated – the number of courts publishing annual plans has fallen from 61 to just 23, while most courts and prosecutors’ offices still do not publish their budgets on their websites. Although significant progress has been made in the regular publication of hearing schedules (71 out of 74 courts), there is still a serious deficit in the publication of court decisions – decisions of 34 courts are still unavailable to the public.
The availability of information on confirmed indictments has increased significantly, and the number of prosecutors’ offices publishing complete indictments has increased from 3 in 2022 to 11 last year, six prosecutors’ offices in BiH are not publishing information on proposed detention measures in 2024, while in 2022 only one prosecutor’s office demonstrated this practice.
Judicial transparency is crucial for institutional accountability, citizen trust and the fight against corruption, but an analysis by TI BiH and BIRN BiH shows that courts and prosecutors’ offices in BiH still do not meet basic standards of openness. Research indicates arbitrary application of the law on freedom of access to information, frequent delays, incomplete responses and violation of legal forms. These results reflect a broader trend of restricting the right to access to information, which TI BiH recognized back in 2023 in its criticism of the Draft Law, which reduces existing rights and is not in line with international standards.
TI BiH therefore reminds all representatives of institutions, especially from the judiciary, of the importance of the right to freedom of access to information and the significance of proactive transparency as key mechanisms for exercising citizens’ rights and improving access to justice, thereby strengthening the accountability and integrity of the public sector – which are key prerequisites for effectively combating corruption.
