The BiH Prosecutor’s Office, during the first five months of 2019, filed just four war crimes indictments, causing concerns about how the court will deal with the huge backlog of war crimes cases.
In 2008, the Bosnian authorities adopted their state strategy for war crimes cases, which said that most complex cases would be completed at the state level within seven years, while all other cases would be transferred to entity-level courts and completed in 15 years.
After the deadline expired in late 2015 without the completion of the most complex cases at the state level, a revised strategy was drafted, which said that all cases should be completed by 2023.
In February last year, the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council gave its consent to the revised strategy, but it has not yet been adopted, or even put on the agenda of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Council of Ministers for consideration.
