News in English     | 13.10.2020. 14:38 |

Komšić: We're drafting a new law on HJPC, SNSD and HDZ jeopardise EU perspective

FENA Fedzad Forto

SARAJEVO, October 13 (FENA) - Member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina last week traveled to Brussels and their joint performance was assessed quite positively by European officials. In a conversation with FENA, a member of the Presidency of BiH, Željko Komšić, emphasizes the fact that certain progress has been made when it comes to fulfilling the 14 priorities from the Opinion of the European Commission on the application of Bosnia and Herzegovina for candidate status for EU membership. 

"We had the opportunity to hear from European officials what awaits us in the coming period, and it is a lot of work because the candidate status depends on significant progress in fulfilling all the 14 priorities. It is my position that we should work hard to meet all the priorities. After all, the political party that I am a member of has really shown this by concrete action, because so far we have proposed amendments to the Constitution and the Election Law in order to implement the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. We have also proposed a new Law on Public Procurement in BiH, and we are preparing a package of amendments to the Law on the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC).

Unfortunately, there are political powers like the HDZ and the SNSD, which apparently do not want that, and when they do not want it, then it is clear that they do not have the will to work on meeting the 14 priorities. It is questionable whether they want EU membership at all," says Komšić.

Commenting on last night's meeting in Belgrade between Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, the BiH Presidency member Milorad Dodik and the BiH PA House of Peoples Deputy Speaker Dragan Čović, Komšić said he "read somewhere that they allegedly discussed the European perspective of BiH".

What kind of perspective would that be, in their opinion, it is enough to highlight that on the same day, the HDZ and the SNSD officials rejected the Bill on Public Procurement in the BiH Parliament, so that their story is completely misplaced with regard to European perspective, moreover, that there are other motives behind everything, which are in fact a threat to BiH's European perspective," he said.

Komšić announced that the Democratic Front is preparing amendments to the law on the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC).

"Should we remind everyone of the many judicial scandals that give us the right to state that the HJPC is a generator of corruption in BiH? Should we be reminded of the shameful scandals surrounding the cases of Memić, Dragičević, the bribery in the HJPC, losing evidence in criminal proceedings against politicians?" asked a member of the Presidency.

It is clear, he believes, that the existing laws do not ensure in an adequate and publicly acceptable way, the accountability of the holders of judicial functions in BiH.

He further states that according to the provisions of the Law on the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina, members of the Council, and in many cases also holders of judicial office, are accountable to themselves for their actions undertaken within their official duties.

This state of affairs has led to the absence of any kind of accountability and complete loss of trust in the judiciary in conditions of extreme violations of the rule of law, and the rights and freedoms of citizens, and even completely unacceptable and inappropriate behavior of judicial officials.

"There are numerous cases in practice that insult the principles on which every civilized order is based upon, and in some cases the foundations of elementary logic.

Such a situation is notoriously obvious in many very sensitive areas of life. Some decisions of the Constitutional Court are still not implemented. Thus, among other things, and just for the sake of example, there is a well-known and widespread practice of applying the provisions of the laws which the Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional, which have ceased to be valid and which the legislator has changed, where the courts go outside their competences, putting their own jurisprudence above legal provisions and decisions of the Constitutional Courts, and taking over the competences of the legislator in a situation where one year after the expiration of unconstitutional provisions they arbitrarily insist on their further application, although the legislator did not leave such possibility when amending those exact unconstitutional provisions.

This is, therefore, just one example of the widespread practice of judicial bodies in the very sensitive area of ​​bankruptcy proceedings, which in an unconstitutional manner completes the 'tycoonization' of society and the alienation of workers' property," stressed Komšić.

"We are preparing three new laws: the Law on the High Judicial Council, the Law on the High Prosecutorial Council and the Law on the Office of the Disciplinary Counsel. Under this proposal, three fully independent and autonomous bodies of Bosnia and Herzegovina would be formed, which would ensure and guarantee the independence and autonomy of prosecutor's offices and prosecutors, courts and judges, as well as a disciplinary prosecutor who would no longer act within the HJPC, but they would be elected and dismissed by the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH," said Komšić.

Under this proposal, the High Judicial Council would consist of seven members, six of whom are judges elected only by judges and one member elected by the House of Representatives of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly. The same principle would apply to the composition of the High Prosecutorial Council, which would consist of six prosecutors, elected by the Prosecutor's Office and one member elected by the House of Representatives of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly.

"There is absolutely no need and it is completely contrary to the purpose and functioning of such a body to include members such as lawyers who represent their clients in judicial proceedings and the like," he explained.

"In order to put an end to the impunity of the members of the Council for obvious omissions in their work or for evidently committed acts that make a person unfit to perform the function of a member of the Council, such as the aforementioned bribery affair of the HJPC President and the like, we have foreseen the possibility that, in exceptional cases, the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina may dismiss a member, president or vice-president of the Council for the precise reasons, at the proposal of at least one-third of the members of this House," concluded Komšić in an interview with FENA.

(FENA) S. R.

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