Final Report on the Work of the Police Restructuring Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina Final Report on the Work of the Police Restructuring Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina December 2004 Final Report on the Work of the Police Restructuring Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina 31 December 2004 HE Paddy Ashdown High Representative Office of the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina HE Adnan Terzic Prime Minister Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina Dear Sirs: In accordance with Articles 1 and 9 of the Decision of the High Representative [Bosnia and Herzegovina Official Gazette 36/04] issued on 5 July 2004, I have the honour to hereby submit my Final Report on the Work of the Police Restructuring Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter Final Report). The Final Report provides a comprehensive review of the work of the Police Restructuring Commission (PRC) during its brief tenure including the results of the plenary meetings of the PRC. The report contains supporting appendices of the agendas of the meetings and the conclusions summarizing the main points of discussion that together serve as the official record of the proceedings. At the first meeting in July 2004 the PRC accepted a working methodology based on the principle of consensus. The methodology stipulated that debate on points of discussion would not be subject to voting in the PRC, but I reserved the right as Chair to determine when the PRC had reached an acceptable level of consensus on an issue. Importantly, the working methodology specified that the PRC recognized and would not infringe on the role of the legal institutions – governments and parliaments – as the appropriate decision-making bodies for implementing police restructuring recommendations. Also, the Final Report proposes to the Chair of the Council of Ministers and the High Representative recommendations for a “single structure of policing under the overall political oversight of a ministry or ministries in the Council of Ministers”. The recommended single structure adheres to the 12 directing principles of police restructuring, enumerated in Article 2 of the Decision, including a policing service that is, inter alia, efficient and effective, financially sustainable, reflecting the ethnic distribution Police Restructuring Commission Emerika Bluma 8, 71 000 Sarajevo Bosnia and Herzegovina Final Report on the Work of the Police Restructuring Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Bosnia and Herzegovina, protected from improper political interference, and accountable to the law and the community. The recommendations in the Final Report fall into two main categories. The first is the recommendation on the institutional features of the single structure. Accordingly, Bosnia and Herzegovina will be vested with exclusive competency for all police matters, which includes legislative and budgetary competency. The Minister of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina would have responsibility for overall political oversight of the single structure of policing in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The independent, national Police Inspectorate will monitor the effectiveness and efficiency of the single structure of policing. In the single structure, the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA), the State Border Service (SBS), and the new Local Police Bodies will form the Police Service of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Local Police Bodies will operate in Local Police Areas commanded by Local Police Commissioners. The Local Police Bodies will prevent, detect and investigate common crimes, and provide rapid intervention, traffic control and safety, crowd control and public order to the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Community policing is a main feature of police work in the Local Police Bodies. The second main recommendation addresses the territorial disposition of the Police Service. It calls for the Local Police Bodies to operate in Local Police Areas made up of groupings of existing municipalities and that technical policing criteria shall determine their geographical size, shape and location. The existing political lines between the entities, Cantons in the Federation or districts in the Republika Srpska have no direct significance in the formation of the Local Police Areas. With regard to the Local Police Areas, the PRC considered three options for the geographical size, shape and location of the Local Police Areas. The first option contains 5 police areas, the second 9 police areas and the Greater Sarajevo Metropolitan Police Area (GSMPA), and the third 10 police areas and the GSMPA. In the course of the final PRC meeting in December 2004, I decided to forward the three options to the High Representative for further consultations and consideration. With regard to the recommendations of the PRC for the single structure of policing, I would characterize the proceedings as reaching an acceptable level of professional consensus on exclusive state competency for policing and for technical policing criteria determining the local police areas. This comprehensive concept of the single structure is the essential element of the proposition of the PRC. It will ensure the necessary breakthrough in quality of public security for both the national and international stakeholders. As for the second level, while I submitted the three options, I would Police Restructuring Commission Emerika Bluma 8, 71 000 Sarajevo Bosnia and Herzegovina Final Report on the Work of the Police Restructuring Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina recommend handling this level with enough flexibility so as not to weaken the large consensus on the first level. I have undertaken all good faith efforts to elaborate the professional consensus into the enclosed recommendations for the single structure. I should note that political restrictions placed by the Republika Srpska National Assembly on the PRC participants from the Republika Srpska prevented the full endorsement of the main recommendations. Therefore, it is my best judgment that the Final Report reflects an acceptable professional consensus but that political obstacles not directly related to professional policing remain. Therefore, I am submitting the Final Report in my role as Chair. To allow for easy reference, I would like to explain the organization of the Final Report. The first chapter, “Executive Summary,” provides a brief overview of the main recommendations. The second chapter, “Mandate and Methodology,” describes the legal basis for the PRC and the political support for the PRC accorded by the Institutions of the European Union, the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the Peace Implementation Council. The second chapter also reports on the PRC meetings and gives special emphasis to the information inputs that guided the PRC process. It also describes my activities as Chair of the PRC, including important meetings with the leaderships of the Parliaments of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the District of Brcko, and the Republika Srpska. I also report on the two public forums held by the PRC. The third chapter, “Concept Paper,” is an expansive description of the institutional features of the single structure of policing. As mentioned above, the recommended structure calls for exclusive state competency for policing legislation and funding and a reorganized Local Police Service operating in Local Police Areas determined by technical policing criteria. The chapter describes a greatly enlarged role for the Ministry of Security and consolidated administrative services including human resources, training standards and management of a Training Institute, common procurement, information technology and communications, and forensics. Chapter 4, “Territorial Disposition of Local Police Areas” reports on the groupings of the existing municipalities that make up the territorial size, shape and location of the Local Police Areas. The chapter will also include data validating the technical policing criteria Police Restructuring Commission Emerika Bluma 8, 71 000 Sarajevo Bosnia and Herzegovina Final Report on the Work of the Police Restructuring Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina used to determine the Local Police Areas. As I have explained above, the three options currently under consideration by the High Representative represent the options that received legitimate discussion in the PRC. The fifth chapter, “Police Restructuring Implementation Strategy,” proposes a transitional arrangement under the Ministry of Security to manage the initial stages of the restructuring effort. The strategy identifies the key areas of implementation activity and describes a method for absorbing the implementation structure into the permanent administrative bodies under the Ministry of Security that will manage the single structure in the future. Chapter 6, “Financial Factors and Police Restructuring,” reports on the current costs of policing in Bosnia and Herzegovina, potential savings from restructuring, and the methods available for providing budgetary resources for policing. The Chapter provides an overview of the Single Account of Bosnia Herzegovina and proposes interim arrangements for financing the restructured police in the short-term. This chapter generally provides descriptions of factors that decision-makers would consider when budgeting for the Police Service of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The seventh and final chapter, “Legal Provision for the Single Structure,”