OSCE and EU support training of judges and prosecutors in BiH on use of ICTY evidence

SARAJEVO, 27 June 2013 – The OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Technical Assistance and Information Exchange Instrument (TAIEX) of the European Commission completed a two-day training course today for judges and prosecutors in BiH on the ICTY’s Electronic Disclosure Suite (EDS) – an extensive archive of documents and evidence gathered by the ICTY Office of the Prosecutor over several years of war crimes processing.

The EDS was previously only available to state-level institutions in BiH and is now being made available to prosecutors’ offices at the entity level. The use of EDS has the potential to further accelerate the proceedings based on access to documents and evidence that were previously not directly available at the entity level.

“Access to the ICTY archives for judges and prosecutors of the entity courts and prosecutors’ offices is of major importance to the process for the referral of war crime cases from State to entity levels”, said Milorad Novkovic, President of the HJPC BiH. “I believe that the ICTY’s Electronic Disclosure Suite will be a very useful instrument and further reinforce the efforts of the prosecutors and the judges for the efficient resolution of numerous war crime cases.”

The EDS training is part of the OSCE Mission’s War Crimes Processing Project which aims to address the most urgent needs of the BiH justice sector in processing war crimes cases, with particular attention focused at the entity level following the transfer of more than 300 cases from the state to the entity level since 2009.

"My Office is fully committed to supporting initiatives aimed at strengthening the capacity for war crimes prosecutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina. One of the keys to success is a well-coordinated approach between national institutions overseeing training and international players like OSCE the EU and UNDP”, said Serge Brammertz, Prosecutor of the ICTY. “This week's training program for entity level prosecutors on accessing material from the ICTY's database is a very positive step".

The War Crimes Processing Project is funded by the governments of the United Kingdom, Norway, Switzerland, the United States, Italy and Germany and was designed to bridge the funding gap ahead of the EU's IPA budgetary support funds which will be released in 2014. The overall aim of the EU financing will be to further accelerate the processing of approximately 1,300 war crimes cases in BiH over a 5-year period.