According to an article in the Southeast European Times, a recent decision issued by the European Court of Human Rights could pave the way for appeals in over 50 war crimes cases decided by the Court of BiH since 2003.
In its ruling on July 18th, the court said that the two convicts could have been given shorter sentences if the 1976 former Yugoslav criminal code was applied in their trials instead of the 2003 BiH criminal code that was adopted after the crimes were committed in the 1990s.
Though the decision does not have any automatic impact on previously-issued verdicts, it could potentially be used as a basis for new appeals by anyone convicted of war crimes under the 2003 law. A wave of such appeals would be problematic for the BiH Court, which already faces a backlog of cases. The Court has faced criticism for other reasons recently, but the Maktouf ruling is seen as a serious blow to the Court’s reputation.
Milan Romanic, a Banja Luka lawyer, said he represented three such cases before the BiH court and noted the issue on a number of occasions during the trials.
“Unfortunately, the court didn’t sustain these appeals. According to my data, there are 54 such cases in BiH. This is a hard punch for the BiH judiciary. The state court, already shaken with other scandals, should not allow itself such disgrace. If I were the court president, I’d immediately resign. If nothing else, then on the moral basis,” Romanic told SETimes.
