Law Program
The Law Program of the Open Society Fund - B&H is focused on creating an environment conductive to the rule of law and the protection of human rights.
Application form (word document)
The Law Program OSF B&H operates in four fields:
- Strengthening of domestic resources in the field of law
- International Humanitarian Law
- Reform of the Criminal Law
- Corruption and Transparency
A. Strengthening of the Domestic Resources
The Project of Clinical Education is established in four Law Schools in B&H: Sarajevo, Banja Luka, and the two different universities in Mostar. 350 students attend the Program each year. Students in their final years gain practical knowledge through legal clinics in following subjects: Criminal and Criminal Procedure Law, Civil and Civil Procedure Law, Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law and European Law. The Law Schools in Sarajevo, Banja Luka and Mostar hold regular meetings, seminars and competitions, thereby allowing a standardization of education and practice among students from the four Universities. In the still disparate educational system of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Legal Clinics represent the first homogenized project of its kind. The Project benefits from the support of academic circles, including students, and legal professionals and is crucial to the reform of Law Schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In addition to introducing alternative models of teaching and abandoning the poor reputation of Law Schools in B&H, one of the main aims of the Project of Legal Clinics is to allow students to be involved in direct practical work. The transition from the "Para-Clinics" to dealing with real cases started in Mostar and Banja Luka. The participants of the Law Clinics in Mostar and
those
involved in the activities of the Center for Human Rights, Mostar, have an opportunity to work with real clients. The majority of their work concerns the protection of rights of exile
exiled persons
and refugees, their consequent issues of title to real estate and the return of property and cases in employment law. In Banja Luka, under the framework of the Academic Center EXIT and the City Government, students and participants in the Legal Clinics, give legal aid and advice to citizens under the guidance of professors and lawyers who act as their mentors.
Education of professional lawyers targets groups of lawyers and judges of magistrates' courts. The complete application of an entirely new Criminal Law framework has started in B&H. Judges and prosecutors are prepared for the new legislature as they underwent a systematically organized training, especially in terms of the level of quality, in the educational centers for the education of judges and prosecutors. However, lawyers are not included in the system of training, thus making the adequacy of defense questionable. That is why it was decided, in consultation with the American Bar Association Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative (ABA CEELI), to be more directly involved in preparation and professional training of lawyers.
At this moment six training sessions have been organized and have been attended by almost all the lawyers in the Republic of Srpska, and over 80% of lawyers in the Federation B&H, i.e. four out of the five regional bar associations in the Federation B&H. Training sessions and seminars are held with the help of relevant national and foreign lecturers, with simulated trials and the necessary working materials, thus once again setting standards for an individual's "right to defense", parity in the relative strength of both sides and "fair and correct trials". Crucially, Magistrate Courts have been completely left out of the present reforms of legislature in B&H. According to the official statistics on Magistrate Courts, over 90% of the citizens of B&H never appear before regular courts, and almost all citizens go through the Magistrate Court process. The "Magistrate Courts in B&H", funded by ourselves and implemented in conjunction with UNDP, has as its aim, the harmonization of laws on offences and the engagement of national experts to help draft a new state law on offences. The existing resources of all magistrate courts in B&H have been quantified, and by means of surveys and interviews, the magistrates have identified the very real problems inherent in the court system of B&H. Magistrate judges have started following identical curricula in the entities' centers for education of judges and prosecutors. This has resulted in the alleviating the strain on human resources for the future reforms of Magistrate Courts. By the end of 2004, we expect the start of the formal reform of the Magistrate Courts by which time the project will have completed its goals in full.
B. International Humanitarian Law
Last year's successful visit to the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) organized by OSF B&H for thirty (30) law students from B&H, stimulated the ICTY Secretariat, with the full support of the Court and the Prosecutors Office, to initiate a continuous program of visits and organize practical work for law students, lower academic personnel, judges and prosecutors from the whole of former Yugoslavia. We are invited to cooperate in the implementation of the project in Bosnia and Herzegovina and we expect that by the end of 2004, the judges of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, that is, the special department for processing of war crimes, will be involved in practical sessions.
With the aim of presenting the importance of processing the war crimes and educating the broader public and getting them involved, we supported the project of the "XY Productions", which involves the making of a documentary film on the proceedings before ICTY and their integral role in the process of reconciliation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The former and present highest representatives of ICTY gave their direct support to the Project, as did numerous foreign associates including, amongst others, Professor Sheriff Basiounni, Judge Gabriella Kirk McDonald, Judge Wolfgang Schomburga, President Theodor Merona and the Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte. The documentary will detail the process of founding ICTY and the processing of war crimes and, of course, allow the highest-ranking officials to explain the influence of the Tribunal on the process of reconciliation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. As part of the same documentary, we will document the real life stories of the victims, witnesses, defendants (those awaiting sentencing, sentenced individuals and individuals who have served their sentences), their families and the wider population of B&H. We are going to encompass the present conditions in three specific multiethnic environments - Prijedor, Konjic and Ahmici, where there were a large number of war crimes committed and those prosecuted before the ICTY came into being. The documentary will be aired to the public before the end of 2004 and the scheduled start of the special department for processing war crimes of the Court of B&H is expected.
C. The Reform of Criminal Legislature
Under the framework of the reform of the national criminal legislature, we prepared a draft for a new separate criminal legislature, which fully regulates the area of juvenile delinquency, as there is no such legal regulation in existence at present. For this reason, special stipulations of general legal regulations are applied. Having, as a starting point, the international conventions and European standards, and guided exclusively by the best interests of the child, we prepared new separate stipulations on the collection of evidence, process and execution of criminal law, as well as stipulations on courts for young people who break the law. On the basis of our own research work on prevention, alternative measures and international accomplishments, with the involvement of national experts, a new law was drafted. Due to the complex procedure for passing a law in B&H (it must pass through two Houses of Parliament at the entities' level and two Houses of Parliament at the State level), a series of public discussions on new legislative solutions was carried out, the results of which will be incorporated into the legislative process by way of the Ministry for Human Rights of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Furthermore, in cooperation with Save the Children UK and UNICEF, we established a dialogue with the relevant national ministries discussing systematic solutions to problems of juvenile justice in general. A series of meetings and seminars were organized, with representatives from Ministry for Justice, Social Work, and Police, Human rights and with academics, judges, prosecutors and social workers from both entities. A National symposium was also held on the state of juvenile justice in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the participation of 127 delegates, comprising both national experts and experts from the region. Representatives of the European Council, Max Plank Institute, Freiburg, Center for the Rights of Children, Belgrade, Institute for Sociological Research, Zagreb, Faculty of Law and University of Ljubljana also attended. The task of the symposium was to ensure that the prerequisite conditions for producing a B&H strategy to decrease the juvenile offence rate, is achieved. National representatives were also selected to produce the resultant strategy.
The coordinated interest team was set up to produce the strategy, which, through the Ministry for Human Rights of Bosnia and Herzegovina was made legally legitimate by the Ministerial Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The key elements of the future national strategy - prevention, common legislature, alternative models, institutional treatment, and education, were all accepted. Precise deadlines were also agreed for the finalization of the strategy, the beginning of 2005.
D. Corruption and Transparency
The research project on the effects of journalistic investigative work into corruption was finalized. Detailed analysis of gathered information revealed the inherent weaknesses of investigative reporting in Bosnia and Herzegovina. These weaknesses were an insufficient knowledge on the phenomenon of corruption and a lack of adequate reaction from the State level to the cases of corruption. This operates in an arena where there is a large degree of distrust on the part of state judicial organs towards information obtained from the media and civil society in general. Conversely the media and civil society often, without giving any arguments, attack the judiciary for their inactivity.
The project for the education of the national independent media in investigative journalism into the area of corruption has also been finalized. The project 'Media and Corruption" included training activities for 20 journalists and editors of B&H media. The lecturers and moderators were selected amongst eminent national experts - representatives of the state court, District Attorney Office, the law association, professors of law and representatives of the Helsinki Committee and Transparency International. An accompanying publication on the topic of corruption and international conventions and the mechanisms for combating corruption was also published.
By the end of 2004 we expect the complete finalization of the regional project "Anti-Corruption Policy Evaluation" where national foundations from Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania and B&H were all involved. It is intended that the results of the project, or rather, the study on the lessons learned from anticorruption activities in the region will be presented to the public, authorities as well as the international organizations present in Bosnia and Herzegovina.