On 25 June the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina convened a consultative meeting with judicial counterparts in Sarajevo. The participants discussed the Instruction on Anonymization and Guidelines for Publication of Judicial and Prosecutorial Decisions’ implications, recently adopted by the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HJPC), in war crimes trials.

The meeting aimed to exchange views with judiciary representatives, court presidents, chief prosecutors, international counterparts, and academia. The discussion centered on the scope of new rules and how to ensure that they do not negatively impact transparency in war crimes cases.

Ambassador Brian Aggeler, Head of the OSCE Mission to BiH, said that transparency of judicial proceedings is essential to ensuring accountability to the BiH public and citizenry, thereby also contributing to the wider goals of transitional justice.

Positive case law was presented by the Court of BiH Judge Željka Marenić, Acting President of the Criminal Division, and Judge Fata Nadarević, President of the Cantonal Court in Bihać. Those courts have been making public, thorugh their respective websites, numerous judgments of public interest, while the anonymization of judgments has been more restrictive so as to avoid depriving the judgments of their substantial aspects.