In the most recent report on the war crime trials in Croatian courts, the OSCE mission to Croatia recognized improvement in Croatian judiciary. This improvement also brings a positive reflect on the willingnes of the Croatian courts to take over some of the ICTY cases, according to the ICTY Completion Strategy. However, the report underlines the neccesity of additional reforms in order to ensure impartial adjudication of war crimes in Croatia. (29-APR-05)
„Several indicators in 2004 permit the conclusion that, in general, the chances of a Serb war crime defendant to receive a fair trial before the Croatian judiciary improved when contrasted to previous years“, stands in the report presented by the Head of the Mission, Ambassador Peter Semneby on Tuesday, 26 April 2005.
The number of significant improvements that support this conclusion include less ethnic bias, lower rate of Serbs convicted of war crimes and the decrease of both unsubstantiated proceedings against Serbs as well as the considerable decrease of in absentia trials.
-However, further efforts are needed to consolidate this progress.- said the Head of Mission. -These include steps to avoid unwarranted arrests and detention of Serbs, review of prior in absentia convictions and measures to address the continuing high error rate in trial court verdicts that results in reversal by the Supreme Court.
Furthermore, the report expressed concern related to the national origin based criminal accountability, since the Serbs are prosecuted for a wide range of conduct while the Croats are being prosecuted solely for killings. The report also adressed the witness protection, who are still exposed to intimidation, especially when testifying against the members of Croatian armed forces.
Although latest improvements contributed positively to the willingness of the Croatian judiciary to cope with the transferred war crime cases coming from the ICTY according to the ICTY Completion Strategy, the report highlighted that only a limited number of Croatian courts could adequately deal with ICTY cases. Therefore, it is up to the government officials to create a politically supportive environment that will ease a public pressure on the prosecution, courts and, above all, witnesses, stands in the report.
