OSCE has identified the lack of basic facts with respect to the number of existing war crime cases and the details of these cases as a major impediment for development of a realistic War Crime Prosecution Strategy. As a first step in preparing the Strategy it is necessary to develop and populate a database including all existing war crime cases at the Prosecutors’ Office of BiH as well as at the Cantonal and District Prosecutors’ Offices. Development of the database is already under way and is financed with funds provided by the OSCE. The database will be ready for data entry in 3 to 4 weeks.
According to Article 3 of the Law on the HJPC this institution is responsible for the professionalism and efficiency of the entire court and prosecutorial system in BiH. This responsibility includes the efficient processing of war crimes. One particular aspect of this responsibility is to decide the number of prosecutors, judges and support staff that should be dealing with war crimes in the coming years. Another important issue is at which level the various case categories should be processed; at the level of BiH or at Cantonal/District level. The mentioned database will help analyzing the situation with respect to the number of cases, number of suspects and the type of violations/crimes.
The database should provide accurate information on the existing war crime cases and - by being continuously updated - provide invaluable information needed by those institutions that are dealing with processing of war crime cases as well as the policy makers in this field.
The State Prosecutor's Office will control the database as its content is based on opened case files in the possession of prosecutor's offices. The statistical output should be made available to all stakeholders in the BiH war crimes process; that is those who stand behind the process politically, financially and administratively. These stakeholders need clarity as to how many cases are pending, against how many suspects, organised according to the gravity of the alleged crimes and the rank or level of responsibility of the suspects. These stakeholders include the BiH Government and public, foreign donor States, representatives of the international community in BiH, and concerned civil society. How much data that should be made public and to whom should be decided by the Prosecutors’ Office of BiH in cooperation with the HJPC.
In order to enter the relevant data it will be necessary to engage 5 data entry clerks for 5 months. The clerks will be located at the Prosecutors’ Office of BiH/the War Crime Chamber and will work under their guidance and supervision. Training in the usage of the database will be provided by the OSCE.