Concerning trends in corruption prosecution: more than two-thirds of corruption cases were completed with suspended sentences

Negative trends are also visible in the decrease in the number of reports and the number of investigations, as well as the number of charges brought, while the number of judgments delivered by courts in corruption criminal cases remained the same.

Sarajevo, 10th December 2018 – Transparency International in BiH (TI BiH) organized a conference on the occasion of the International Anti-Corruption Day, at which it presented its Monitoring on the corruption prosecution for 2017-2018, and the Interactive map that will help citizens monitor the work of the judicial bodies more easily.

The conference also served as an opportunity to discuss the integrity of the judiciary within a panel that particularly discussed a lustration experience in Albania, and the possibility of applying similar practice in BiH. Director of the Helsinki Committee of Albania, Erida Skendaj, emphasized that it was a demanding procedure involving the verification of property, competences and personal background of judicial function holders. In her opinion, a successfully conducted vetting procedure could be the way to restore faith in the judiciary. The Deputy of the Chief Disciplinary Counsel, Mirza H. Omerovic, presented a way to ensure the integrity of judges and prosecutors through the institute of disciplinary responsibility, warning that the main objection until now has referred to too mild penal policy. The highest number of disciplinary proceedings this year has been related to the cases of unjustified delay in the work on judicial and prosecutorial cases, or to carelessness and negligence in performing official duties.

TI BiH also presented its regular Monitoring of Corruption Prosecution in Courts and Prosecutor’s Offices of BiH in 2017 and for the first six months of 2018. Information indicate that the unsatisfactory results were recorded in the first six months of 2018, compared to the results obtained during the same period in 2016 and 2017. Negative trends are visible in the decrease in the number of reports and the number of investigations, as well as the number of charges brought, while the number of judgments delivered by courts in corruption criminal cases remained the same. The disturbing fact is that only 79 corruption cases were adjudicated in BiH in the first six months of the current year, 57 of which were suspended sentences, or as many as 72,1% of the total number of convictions. During this period, the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH delivered only four convictions, three of which were imprisonment and one suspended sentence.

The conference included presentation of an Interactive map aimed at enabling journalists, representatives of civil society organizations and all citizens to approach the judicial statistics more easily. Interactive map of corruption processing is available at the following link: www.mapa.ti-bih.org.

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