Prosecuting of Corruption on the Lowest Level in the Last 5 Years

Banja Luka, 6^th August 2014 – Transparency international and the Open Society Fund BIH have published the Report on the monitoring of prosecution of corruption in the courts and prosecutors’ offices in BiH for the period 2012-2013, which presented the data on the efficiency of courts and prosecutors’ offices in detection and prosecution of corruption offences. Unfortunately, the data on Monitoring show a drastic decline in the number of prosecuted cases, as well as cases reported to prosecutors’ office, conducted investigations, indictments and judgments rendered for this kind of criminal offences.

Starting with the number of reports for corruption offences in the work of prosecutors’ offices a significant decrease has been noted in 2013, when prosecutors’ offices at all levels noted 2.363 reports, comparing with 3.174 reports in 2012, which represents the decrease of 25%. It was also noted the dramatic decline in the number of investigations of corruption offences in 2013, when only 747 investigations were conducted, which was almost halved comparing to 2012. The largest decrease was reported in the Republic of Srpska where 60% less investigations were recorded during 2013 in regard to the previous year, whereas the decline of 45% was noted in the Federation of BiH.

When it comes to indictments for criminal cases of corruption, a slight improvement has been noted, and in 2013 prosecutors’ offices rendered 265 indictments for corruption offences, comparing with 2012 when 223 indictments were rendered. This growth is a result of an increased number of conducted investigations in 2012, and it was expected that certain number of these investigations would result in the indictments during the following year.

However, the data relating to court rulings show that the worst results were achieved in sentencing the perpetrators of corruption in the last 5 years, both in the number of judgments and in the very structure of rulings for these criminal offences. For example, in 2013, the Court of BiH rendered only 3 judgments on corruption offences, one of which was an acquittal. Prosecution of corruption in the Court of Federation of BiH also noted a decline comparing to the previous 4 years- in 2013, 78 judgments on corruption offences were rendered, comparing with 124 judgments in 2012, 113 judgments in 2011, and per 91 judgments for 2010 and 2009. The same decrease is reflected in the number of 60 verdicts in the FBiH during 2013, which was less in comparison with the number of verdicts delivered during previous years.

The devastating data are shown in the case of the courts at all levels in the Republic of Srpska, which rendered 60 judgments on corruption offences in 2013, which represents a decline of 50% in comparison with 2012. During the last five years, the number of rendered judgments on corruption offences in the RS has been constantly decreasing, and the worst results were achieved in 2013, when courts at all levels rendered 37 judgments, which represents a decrease of 40%.

In 2013, total number of judgments rendered on crimes of corruption in BiH was 147, out of which 102 were convictions versus 36 acquittals and 9 rejected cases, which has generally been the worst result since the beginning of conduction of these researches by TI BiH. Analysis of available data has shown that out of 147 judgments 103 judgments were rendered for criminal offense of abuse of office and embezzlement in service, while for receiving gifts and other forms of benefits the court ruled in 6 cases and for the crime of unlawful mediation the court rendered only one judgment, and that was acquittal.

All these data indicate the inefficiency of the judiciary in prosecuting corruption, which we have been witnessing for years but during the last one it reached its peak. The results have shown that the judiciary in BiH continues to prosecute cases of corruption at lower levels of the government, given that the majority of cases have been delivered by the primary and municipal courts. In this way, the biggest corruption scandals, to which the media and civil society have warned, are still remaining uninvestigated and unprosecuted, further undermining the public confidence in the judiciary. TI BiH warns that without an active role of judiciary and judicial condemnation of corruption at higher levels of the government, laws and strategies adopted to fight against corruption will have no meaning and no one can expect any progress.