Zarobljena pravda
Captive Justice

Summary/Abstract: The justice system in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been in deep crisis for years, heavily influenced by nationalist political parties, helpless in the face of political dictatorship, and incapable of prosecuting even a single case of high-level corruption, the collusion of politics and crime, attacks on the state, and the endangerment of its constitutional order. This is particularly evident in the case of war crimes trials, despite clear guidelines and an abundance of evidence provided by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. For almost three decades, the most responsible individuals for the most severe war crimes, such as city sieges, ethnic cleansing, persecution, mass murders, systematic rapes, concentration camps, and the destruction of religious buildings, have not been prosecuted in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and as it stands, they likely won’t ever be. It is clear that without achieving justice, there will be no stable peace, and this country cannot integrate and move forward. What can be done? All previous justice reforms and strategies for war crime trials have not yielded results because there was no political will for them. Therefore, the first serious step in stabilizing the state should be a genuine, comprehensive judicial reform led by the international community and its judicial institutions, with the involvement of a larger number of foreign judges and prosecutors. Without this, this part of the Balkans will find it difficult to become a full-fledged part of Euro-Atlantic integration, and we will remain in a state of permanent and risky instability that openly threatens new conflicts.

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