The defense of the President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik pointed out that the proposal to transfer the conduct of the proceedings from the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the competent court in Banja Luka was submitted given the fact that the environment in which the trial should be held by no means tends to calm down from the day the investigation was disclosed until today.
Stating that the question can be raised as to why the delegation of jurisdiction was not requested earlier, the defense clarified that the expected calming of the atmosphere and the creation of a more neutral environment, especially the absence of pressure produced by public officials, foreign and domestic, was missing.
“The environment in which the trial is to be held has by no means calmed down since the day of the disclosure of the investigation against President Dodik until today. Since, in the opinion of the defense, even minimal neutralization of the situation in which the trial is taking place has not happened, this request for the delegation of jurisdiction is submitted for important reasons, before the start of the trial in this case.
We assess that the purpose and goal of the cited legal provision from Article 27 of the CPC of BiH is to achieve the principle of economy, that is, that the main trial has not started, so that the effectiveness of the provision is satisfied if the delegation of jurisdiction is proposed before the start of the trial. This is all the more so since the witnesses were not even called to the scheduled trial, and the request was submitted before December 6, as the day for which the trial was scheduled to begin,” the defense of the President of Srpska pointed out.
This position of the defense, as stated in the motion signed by attorney Goran Bubić, is also supported by the aforementioned comments of the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in which it is written that “in addition to the existence of important reasons, the following conditions must also be met cumulatively: that the main trial has not started and that it is not about a criminal offense against the integrity of BiH (Art. 158 – 168 of the CC of BiH)”.
The proposal further states that the judicial practice of the European Court of Human Rights supports the allegations in the proposal for the transfer of proceedings.
As an argument for this defense proposal, probably decisive for the delegation, only some of the numerous examples from the practice of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg are cited as an illustration:
“At the same time, press coverage of current events is an exercise of freedom of expression, guaranteed by Article 10 of the Convention (Bédat v. Switzerland [GC], paragraph 51). If there is a hostile media campaign regarding a trial, what is decisive is not the subjective feelings of the suspects, however understandable they may be, on whether the trial court is without prejudice, as it is required of it, but whether the suspect’s fear can be considered objectively justified in the special circumstances of the case (Włoch v. Poland (dec.); Daktaras v. Lithuania (dec.) ; Priebke v. Italy (dec.); Butkevičius v. Lithuania (dec.); G.C.P. v. Romania, paragraph 46; Mustafa (Abu Hamza) v. United Kingdom (dec.), paragraphs 37 – 40.).
Some of the factors that have been established in judicial practice as relevant to the Court’s assessment of the impact of such a campaign on fair trials include: the time that passed between the media campaign and the start of the trial, and especially the determination of the composition of the trial court; whether the disputed announcements were attributable to the authorities or were based on information from the authorities and whether the announcements influenced the judge or jury and thereby affected the outcome of the proceedings (Beggs v. the United Kingdom (dec.), para. 124; Abdulla Ali v. the United Kingdom Kingdoms, paragraphs 87 – 91; Paulikas v. Lithuania, paragraph 59).
In the end, the defense proposes to the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to consider the proposal and delegation of jurisdiction to the Court of General Jurisdiction in Banja Luka (according to the threatened sentence) and according to the principle of opportunity or possibly to the District Court in Banja Luka.
Photo: srna.rs
Source: srna.rs
