Simic told SRNA that the BiH
authorities have never made a serious analysis of the results of foreign judges
and prosecutors in the BiH judicial system.
“However, we who are doing this job,
including the public, could have an insight into their operations and I feel
they have ‘failed the exam’ since they failed to make the necessary
contribution, having in mind that they are here to help us,” he said.
Simic concluded that the international
members “were to a large degree below the level of domestic judges and
prosecutors.” “That which was the reason to engage them – to help develop the
judiciary in BiH – was not achieved,” Simic says.
Simic says that BiH should not have
brought such a decision, since a state with self-respect must not allow in any
way violation of its sovereignty.
“When you have foreign judges and
prosecutors in the judicial system, then you give them certain powers, which,
in my opinion, is contrary to the terms of sovereignty,” he explained.
Simic noted the fact that foreign
judges and prosecutors refused to take the oath of office, and that a judge
without the oath of office seems a little “morbid.”
“In any case, it is good that they
leave. They did not make a contribution in the professional sense or in
relation to justice, since everyone here is convinced, particularly in
Republika Srpska, that justice was selective when it comes to war crimes,”
Simic said.
He recalled a huge number of cases
which turned out to be political persecution, such as the trials of Mirko
Sarovic, Mladen Ivanic, Dragan Covic and others.
“Good luck to them, and BiH will have
to build its judicial system alone,” said Simic, who is a member of the BIH
House of Peoples.
Mladen Ivanic, a Serbian member of the
BiH House of Peoples, asked on a number of occasions the relevant institutions
to evaluate operations of foreign judges and prosecutors in BIH, but did not
get an answer so far.
There are three international members
in the BiH Prosecution and the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC),
who will leave office by the end of the year, after which only domestic staff,
except in the BiH Constitutional Court, will work in the BiH judiciary for the
first time after the war.
Of the nine judges in the BiH
Constitutional Court, three are foreign.
Two international prosecutors are
still engaged in the BiH Prosecution’s War Crimes Department, they being Eric
Larson of the USA and Marjan Pogacnik of Slovenia. Sven Marius Urke of Norway
is an international member of the BiH HJPC, whose mandate was extended on a
number of occasions.
Srna/Frontal
