Cantonal Court in Zenica, Prosecution of the Brčko District of BiH and the RS Municipal Court are among the best judicial institutions in BiH, while the worrisesting unaccount of institutions are serious, 23. April, from Transparency International.
The best rating of the Transparency Index recorded the Cantonal Court in Zenica (Index 87), the Prosecution of the Brčko District of BiH (82), while the first five are the Prosecution of the Zenica-Doboj Canton (81) and the RS Supreme Court (80). On the other hand, among the worst assessed institutions are the municipal courts in Kalesija and Sarajevo and the Basic Court in Doboj (30) and the Srebrenica Court (26), as the most open institutions in the BH judiciary (the results for all prosecutor’s offices and courses at the end of the text).
Ignoring media queries
The results of the judicial transparency index, which measures the level of proactive, reactive and transparency towards the media, shows that one third, or 32 of the 94 courts and prosecutors’ offices in BiH does not match any media inquiries on their cases. In addition, 50 percent of the prosecutor’s office in Bosnia and Herzegovina ignored the content of the content appeals, while 62 percent of the courts refused to deliver or completely ignored media inquiries regarding the judgments that have brought.
The requirements of the media for the submission of audiovisual materials of recordings and access to indictments are most often refused, and this attitude towards the media further complicates the public’s supervision over the judicial system.
Transparency Index evaluates the availability of information on the website and co-operation with the media with a number of points (52, 30 and 18), whose analysis shows a treasure of 2022. – More than half of the application for information has been resolved within the legal deadline with complete answers, and the number is reduced cases of ignoring requirements with 16 percent to 12.8 percent. However, the trend of growth of rejected requirements is concerned, which may indicate an increasingly closed approach of institutions.
An additional reason for concern is the fact that the judicial institutions are treated differently in more than 70 percent of cases, received complete answers in the legal deadline, while citizens received only 35 percent of cases. A third of the requirements of citizens remain unanswered, and each tenth is rejected, which indicates discrimination and systemic denial of public rights to information.
Proactive transparency is further degraded – the number of courts publishing annual plans fell from 61 to only 23, while most courts and prosecutors still not publish their budgets on the website. Although significant progress has been made in the regular publication of the hearing (71 out of 74 court), 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 the confirmed indictments increased significantly and is the number of prosecutor’s offices that publishes the complete indictment from 3 in 2022. Six prosecutors in BiH in 2024. years while in 2022. This practice showed only one prosecution.
Freedom of access to information
The transparency of the judiciary is key to the responsibility of institutions, citizens’ trust and the fight against corruption, but the analysis of BiH and BIRN BiH shows that courts and prosecutors in BiH still do not meet the basic standards of openness. Research indicates an arbitrary application of the Law on Freedom of Access Information, Frequent Delays, Incomplete Responses and Violation of Legal Forms. These results reflect the broader trend of restricting the right to access information, which would recognize another 2023. In criticisms on the proposal of the law that reduces existing rights and is not harmonized with international standards.
You would therefore remind all representatives of the institutions, and especially in the field of justice, the importance of proactive transparency as key mechanisms for the realization of citizens and the responsibility and integrity of the public sector – what are the key assumptions for the effective corruption suppression, transmits Radio Sarajevo.
