REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE OF BIH PARTICIPATED AT THE REGIONAL CONFERENCE TITLED ‘CHALLENGES OF REPORTING ON WAR CRIMES TRIALS’, HELD IN BELGRADE

Central topics of the Conference related to the improvement of cooperation and communication between media and judicial institutions, as well as with other subjects involved in the process of transitional justice.

Prosecutors and Judges from BiH and Serbia gave very interesting presentations and were keynote speakers on topics pertaining to regional cooperation in the prosecution of war crimes cases, whereas Mr. Dragan Čorlija, Deputy Chief Prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH, gave a presentation on cooperation and implementation of the Protocol of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor of the Republic of Serbia  on Cooperation in Prosecution of Perpetrators of War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity and Genocide;   
within the implementation of the Protocol, regular meetings are being held and future cooperation between these two Prosecutor’s Offices arranged.

At this Conference, difficulties which the journalists following war crimes trials in BiH and Serbia are facing were discussed, in terms of access to information and documents related to court proceedings, as well as possibility to follow court proceedings and obtain photos and AV recordings from trials.

Also, one of the topics for discussion related to the investigative journalism on war crimes.

Within the topic pertaining to the judicial institutions’ relationship with media and local communities, public relations representatives of the prosecutor’s offices and courts in BiH, Serbia and ICTY shared their experience and practice in cooperation and communication of the representatives of the judiciary with journalists and media representatives, as well as with representatives of war crimes victims and local community. 

At this conference, media reporting in war crimes cases from the victims’ perspective was also discussed, and presentations on this topic were given by representatives of association of war crimes victims and representatives of the aggrieved parties in court proceedings in BiH and Serbia. 

The conference in Belgrade was attended by representatives of prosecutor’s offices and courts from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, representatives of journalists reporting on judicial and war crimes issues, lawyers, representatives of associations of war crimes victims, as well as representatives of other human rights organizations.

The Prosecutor’s Office of BiH was represented by Mr. Dragan Čorlija, Deputy Chief Prosecutor, Mr. Seid Marušić, Prosecutor of the Special Department for War Crimes and Mr. Boris Grubešić, Head of the Public Relations Department of the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH.

The Conference was organized by OSCE Mission to Serbia and Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN).