Police agencies are transparent inasmuch it does not compromise their work or interfere with investigations. However, when it comes to certain criminal offences, notably those related to corruption and implicating politicians as suspects, the public finds it rather difficult to get access to adequate information on the decisions that were made, and how they were made.

By Alma Kovačević (CSS) / Photo: REG
@CSS_BiH

Recommendations

1. Introduce an obligation to judiciary institutions to publish all indictments and verdicts on corruption, especially those against police and judiciary employees as well as against high politicians and holders of high positions in the state. This would increase the transparency of their work and would be a good anti-corruption tool.
2. It is important to harmonize the method for data collection and keeping statistics on corruption across BiH. This would enable objective comparison of the statistical data amongst police agencies and provide objective data on police corruption in the country. Finally, harmonization of the method for data collection and keeping statistics on police corruption would make BiH closer to the EU in terms of applying best practice of keeping statistics on crime.

Application of the law on free access to information

As a rule, all police agencies are open to the public. Most of the information about the work of police agencies can be found on their official websites. Freedom of information about the activities of public authorities in BiH is regulated by the Laws on Freedom of Access to Information in BiH. Information about the work of police agencies is mainly disseminated by the agencies’ PR services or spokespersons, although the managers or the staff can also give statements and information to the public through the media.

The entity Laws on Freedom of Access to Information state that every natural and legal person has a right of access to information under the control of a public authority and each public authority has a corresponding obligation to disclosing information. Furthermore, the competent authority may claim an exemption in cases where the disclosure would reasonably be expected to, among other things, cause substantial harm to the interests of defense and security, protection of public safety and the prevention and detection of crime.

The laws that govern the work of police agencies contain provisions on transparency and enable the public to have access to relevant information about their activities, as long as they are not treated as confidential or constitute operational information on criminal offences and whose disclosure would infringe provisions laid down in the Law on Criminal Procedure. However, the very nature of police work requires certain secrecy, making it impossible to publicly disclose all of the requested information.

In 2014, Transparency International BiH has filed 32 lawsuits against public institutions for violations of the Law on Free Access to Information, mostly related to the incorrect application of certain articles of the law, non-enforcement of the public interest test and administrative silence. From the 32 disputes, 14 judgments were rendered in favor of TI BiH, one against, and in the remaining 17 cases proceedings are still being conducted. Among the institutions that TI BiH sued for failure to service contracts is the SIPA.

Problems with sensitive police cases

Based on the interviews with police managers, a big issue is that the work of the police agencies is sometimes made too transparent and media presence is not often welcome in some sensitive cases. This occurs when it comes to arrests of high-ranking officials, politicians, etc., that are often done in the presence of the media, especially TV crews and afterwards broadcast to the public. This creates the situation that, in the eyes of the public, the arrested people are declared guilty in advance, i.e. before any trial and legal verdict. Later, if they are set free or acquitted of charges, the citizens have less confidence in police fighting corruption. However, we come to an important issue here: “How is it possible that media representatives are aware of the arrests if it is a confidential police action?” The problem of recording such actions is caused by the police, not the media. Therefore, we can claim that, to some extent, police contributes to declaring some individuals guilty in the eyes of the public.

The obvious influence of politics on policing institutions

Although both police and judicial institutions claim that they are independent and impartial, the influence of politics and the ruling structures is evident. It often happens that massive police operations and spectacular arrests of political leaders are conducted during election campaigns, while shortly after an election and formation of a new government, as a rule, either no investigation is conducted or cases are dismissed over a lack of evidence against the suspects.

An example would be the arrest of the then president of the Federation, Živko Budimir, in 2013 on suspicion that some decisions on pardoning convicts violated the law and that he had abused his authority, specifically that he had committed criminal offenses of organized crime, abuse of authority, illegal mediation and bribery. A one month detention was set in place, after which the State Prosecution proposed an extension for another two months. However, the Court quickly issued a decision on his release. This took place at the same time as the reconstruction of the Government of the Federation.

Furthermore, in less than one month before the general elections in October 2014, the Federal Minister of Agriculture, Water and Forestry, Jerko Ivanković Lijanović, as well as the Trade Minister of the Federal Government, Milorad Bahilj, and number of ministers and senior officials at the cantonal level of government, all members of Lijanović’s party, were arrested. They were under investigation and suspected of criminal offenses of organized crime in connection to crimes of tax evasion, tax avoidance or fraud and money laundering under article 209 of the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The next day Lijanović was released of custody and the criminal proceedings were never initiated.

The lack of statistical data on corruption

A very interesting issue in the area of transparency relates to the lack of relevant statistical data on corruption in general and on corruption in police itself. This is, by a huge part, caused by the complex police and judicial structure. Some of the statistics are published by prosecutors’ offices, courts and the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC). The advantage is that they provide accurate data, but the weaknesses are multi-fold.

First of all, existing statistics do not allow monitoring of cases nor do they show the outcomes. The reason is that statistics provide annual data of the cases, without any information on the dates of receipt of cases or how long it took the prosecution to decide whether or not an investigation would be opened, to propose charges or how long it took the courts to start holding hearings or to reach verdicts. This means that the existing statistics do not allow a case by case analysis. Even the BiH Progress Report of the European Commission for 2013 notes that “despite available statistical data, there is no analysis of corruption cases.”

Further, statistics do not show the number of cases against high-ranking public officials involved in corruption, or the number of so-called “small” cases, because all cases are recorded together. Therefore, these statistics are not helpful as we cannot find out how many cases have been held against police officers or holders of high positions in the state or any specific groups of officials. Thirdly, a rather unequal approach to identify and report on corruption cases in prosecutors’ offices has been noticed. For instance, some prosecutors’ offices provide statistical data on cases, and others on both cases and individuals. Some reports provide the data as per groups of criminal offences, while others do that per type of crime, general crime, economic crime and war crimes, without showing the number of corruptive offences. Therefore, we have a sum of non-comparable data on corruption.

As for the keeping statistics on police corruption by police agencies, the practice varies from one police agency to another. Hence, there is a lack of real and objective statistical data on police corruption in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The lack of legislation regulating this obligation usually leads to misinterpretation and wrong assessment of police behavior. In addition to that, the lack of clear international standards regulating this area makes the issue more dubious. This indicates the importance of harmonizing the method for data collection and keeping statistics across BiH.