COURTING DISASTER: THE MISRULE OF LAW IN BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA 25 March 2002 Balkans Report No. 127 Sarajevo/Brussels TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS ....................................................................................i I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................1 II. THE LEGAL CONTEXT................................................................................................................................4 A. POST-WAR LEGAL AND JUDICIAL REFORM.........................................................................................5 B. INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS ........................................................................................................8 1. Independent Judicial Commission (IJC) ........................................................................................8 2. Office of the High Representative (OHR)......................................................................................9 3. UN Mission in Bosnia & Herzegovina (UNMIBH).....................................................................10 4. Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)....................................................10 5. Council of Europe (CoE) .............................................................................................................10 6. American Bar Association and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) .11 C. THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY CAN DO BETTER .......................................................................11 III. DISTRIBUTORS OF JUSTICE....................................................................................................................12 A. THE ENTITIES .......................................................................................................................................13 1. The Federation .............................................................................................................................13 2. Republika Srpska .........................................................................................................................17 3. What Is to be Done?.....................................................................................................................17 B. CONSTITUTIONAL COURTS ..................................................................................................................18 C. HUMAN RIGHTS ....................................................................................................................................21 1. Human Rights Chamber...............................................................................................................21 2. Ombudsmen .................................................................................................................................23 D. THE STATE COURT ...............................................................................................................................25 IV. CRIMINAL LAW REFORM........................................................................................................................26 A. THE SCOPE OF CHANGE.......................................................................................................................26 B. INTERNATIONAL AND INTER-ENTITY LEGAL LIAISON......................................................................29 C. THE POLITICS OF LEGAL REFORM.....................................................................................................30 D. TOWARDS A BETTER FUTURE .............................................................................................................31 V. WAR CRIMES ...............................................................................................................................................31 A. THE INADEQUACIES OF ENTITY-BASED JUSTICE ..............................................................................32 B. THE ROLE OF THE STATE COURT.......................................................................................................33 C. OTHER CHALLENGES IN STORE ..........................................................................................................34 VI. PROFESSIONALISING THE JUDICIARY ...............................................................................................36 A. THE FAILINGS OF COMPREHENSIVE PROFESSIONAL REVIEW .........................................................36 1. What Went Wrong? .....................................................................................................................37 2. Problems with Appointments.......................................................................................................39 B. A BETTER WAY ....................................................................................................................................41 VII. PROFESSIONALISING THE LAWYERS AND THEIR EDUCATION.................................................44 A. THE LAWYERS AND THEIR PROFESSION ............................................................................................44 B. REFORMING LEGAL EDUCATION ........................................................................................................47 VIII. BRCKO: HOW THE EXCEPTION PROVES THE RULE ......................................................................49 A. INDEPENDENT JUDICIARY ....................................................................................................................49 B. BRCKO JUDICIAL COMMISSION...........................................................................................................50 C. THE COURTS .........................................................................................................................................50 D. REFORM OF CRIMINAL PROCEDURES ................................................................................................50 E. SHORTCOMINGS AND RELEVANCE OF THE BRCKO MODEL.............................................................51 1. Non-Cooperation with the Entities...............................................................................................52 2. Implementation Problems.............................................................................................................53 3. Prospects ......................................................................................................................................53 F. LESSONS ................................................................................................................................................54 IX. CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................................................55 APPENDICES A. GLOSSARY OF ABBREVIATIONS ...........................................................................................................58 B. MAP OF BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA ..................................................................................................59 C. ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP .....................................................................................60 D. ICG REPORTS AND BRIEFING PAPERS................................................................................................61 E. ICG BOARD MEMBERS ........................................................................................................................65 ICG Balkans Report N° 127 25 March 2002 COURTING DISASTER: THE MISRULE OF LAW IN BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS The law does not yet rule in Bosnia & Herzegovina. and external borders and national or confessional What prevail instead are nationally defined politics, divides. Their community of interest – in getting rich inconsistency in the application of law, corrupt and and defying the law – contrasts with the disunity of incompetent courts, a fragmented judicial space, half- those who want to uphold the law. baked or half-implemented reforms, and sheer negligence. Bosnia is, in short, a land where respect for Not only is Bosnia divided juridically into three, four, and confidence in the law and its defenders is weak. fourteen, or sixteen territorial-hierarchical jurisdictions (depending on how the one state, two entities, one Bosnians are unequal before the law, and they know it. autonomous district, eight unitary cantons, and two Exercise of the legal rights to repossess property or to mixed cantons are counted); it also has three separate reclaim a job too often depends on an individual’s sets of laws, two of which are replete with contradictory national identity – or that of the judge before whom she provisions. This fragmentation is a boon to criminals or he appears. Even when citizens do get justice in the and a pitfall for would-be reformers and enforcers of the courts, the chances of having decisions enforced can be law. slim, since the execution of court orders is often prolonged unlawfully or hedged in arbitrary conditions. The discontinuity of the territorial structure bequeathed Obtaining justice is also subject to geographical by the Dayton Peace Accords is compounded by chance. War crimes in one entity or canton are still Bosnia’s mixed legislative inheritance. The statute hailed as acts of heroism in another. books contain a multitude of outdated, overlapping and inconsistent