Eurasia Press & News
The most pressing problems of the Bosnian judiciary are politicisation, backlog of cases, poor method of financing and failure to prosecute corrupted senior officials, claims a study by Transparency International.The Bosnian branch of Transparency International has presented on Friday at a conference organised to mark the International Anti-Corruption Day, findings of the Study on National Integrity System, which assesses the institutions important for the anti-corruption system.
The study specifies that the judiciary in Bosnia and Herzegovina still shows weaknesses caused by a complex state structure and political pressures on the judiciary.
“One of the key problems is politicisation – political pressure on judiciary, which culminated in 2012 with the proposal by political parties from Republika Srpska that the Court and Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina be abolished,” said Lejla Ibranovic from Transparency International.
As another issue, she cited “problematic financing” of the judiciary, from 14 different budget sources, whose capacities and financial resources are unreliable and unequally distributed. She added that there is a problem of a huge backlog of cases too.
“Especially troubling is what was pointed out in the local and international reports and researches, that prosecuting corruption of senior officials is completely amiss,” said Ibranovic.
Transparency International has published the Corruption Index for this year, according to which Bosnia is on the 72nd place of the total of 176 countries.
The study also assessed as very poor the work of legislative and executive power, public sector, anti-corruption agency and political parties.
The study concluded that the situation in the media in Bosnia has not progressed for years, and that the media are under influence of political parties.
The auditing institutions and international organisations got the best grades in the study.
It is concluded that all these problems depended on the will of political leaders and political situation in the country.
“Bad news for Bosnia is that we did not have the will to fight corruption. Political elites have never carried out a single anti-corruption reform,” said Srdjan Blagovcanin, the executive director of Transparency International in Bosnia.
Transparency International is an NGO that monitors and publicizes corporate and political corruption across the globe.
The conference, which Transparency International organised in Sarajevo in cooperation with the Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was attended by politicians, representatives of international organisations.
