|
 A Model for
the Future
This
collection of selected texts from the first five issues
of the journal Pravda u tranziciji (Justice in
Transition) is a cross section which reflects the four
basic elements related to the process of justice in
transition – war crime trials, reparations to war
victims, reforms of state institutions and establishing
the truth about the past. The published standpoints of
eminent representatives of the judiciary – the judges
and prosecutors – as well as of representatives of
non-governmental and international organizations, of
journalists and lawyers, present a detailed analysis of
transitional justice in Serbia. The situation is the
same in the region (Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Slovenia), but also globally (from the Special Court in
Sierra Leone, over the experiences of South Africa and
Latin America, all the way to the International Criminal
Tribunal for former Yugoslavia).
We have tried – through analyses of the existing
situation regarding transitional justice, and leaning,
unfortunately, upon the experiences from the “bad past”
– to offer models for the future, first of all for a
better regional network, but also for an efficient
process of getting closer to European integration.
The idea to start this journal was initiated in the War
Crimes Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Serbia,
which recognized its own role in the process of
strengthening of institutions, of building better access
to justice for those whose rights were violated during
the war conflicts. The aim of the War Crimes
Prosecutor’s Office was to strengthen confidence, to
initiate mechanisms for exchanging information among
colleagues who work on same issues in different
environments and to inform the public on a broader
scale, and for this move into the media field it enjoyed
unconditional support, first of all from the War Crimes
Chamber, the Special Prosecutor’s Office and the Special
Department for Organized Crime, as well as from
professional circles, independent media, the
non-governmental sector and international organizations
and embassies.
Pravda u tranziciji is a bimonthly journal. It is
intended for a specialized audience – the media,
judicial organs, embassies, courts and prosecutors in
the region, as well as representatives of political
parties and members of the Serbian Parliament. Although
the standpoint of the Editorial Board and the
Publisher’s Council from the very beginning was that
politicians shall not appear as authors in the journal,
this part of the reading audience is of particular
importance because of the aim to offer strategic advice
in the field of overcoming problems left by the war
heritage.
Awareness that responsibility must be established for
the most severe forms of violation of humanitarian law,
which in the territory of former Yugoslavia were
committed at the turn of the 20th century, opened the
discussion on crimes in this territory during the last
fifteen years. War crime trials exposed the issue of
criminal responsibility for war crimes, and in a
parallel manner also for alternative forms of
responsibility through attempts to form commissions for
truth and reconciliation in Serbia and
Bosnia-Herzegovina. The question of political
responsibility was inevitably opened, and through the
institute of apology it was recognized also by those who
hold highest ranking public functions. It will turn out
that these gestures, which at first sight are symbolic
and of a formal nature, had a very strong influence and
echo in the region; likewise, the absence of such a
gesture has been often quoted as a hindrance on the path
to reconciliation.
The War Crimes Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of
Serbia is an institutional support to war victims in the
territory of the former Yugoslavia. To the extent to
which it does not interfere with fair trial, it tries to
help them realize their right to justice. Only cases
which, in different phases, were before the War Crimes
Prosecutor’s Office, involve 2,500 victims. On the other
hand, perpetrators of these crimes very often appear as
suspects in cases related to organized crime and,
unfortunately, this is the future which in the judiciary
has already started and which directs even more towards
regional and international networking, but also towards
finding new legal solutions which will enable an
efficient struggle against those who engage in human
trafficking, in trade with arms and drugs.
According to the most recent opinion polls which the
Belgrade Center for Human Rights made in cooperation
with the agency Strategic Marketing for the War Crimes
Prosecutor’s Office, 60 percent of Serbia’s citizens
think that the national judiciary is ready for war crime
trials. If one of the main aims for which The Hague
Tribunal was founded was reconciliation among the
peoples of former Yugoslavia, it is most certain that
the national courts also followed this path. The War
Crimes Prosecutor’s Office, thanks to regional
cooperation with colleagues in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in
Croatia, as well as in Kosovo, became the meeting point
of witnesses in the cases Lora, Tuzlanska kolona, and
the tragic events in which the soldiers of the Yugoslav
Army in Kosovo were killed. Likewise, for the
prosecutors from Serbia the doors are open in Zagreb,
Osijek, Sarajevo, Pristine. The Prosecutor and the OSCE
Mission in Serbia organized for the journalists from
Serbia who follow the war crimes trials visits to the
judicial organs of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and
they talked to families of victims from Ovcara,
Srebrenica, Zvornik, Skelani, Bratunac.
The journal Pravda u tranziciji is yet another in the
line of efforts of the War Crimes Prosecutor’s Office to
bring our work closer to the public, both the
professional and the broader public and, which is even
more important, the public in the region. War crimes are
a regional problem, and without close regional
cooperation with the colleagues-prosecutors in Croatia
and Bosnia-Herzegovina, there is no efficient
institutional facing with the war crimes, namely with
the prosecution of those who committed them and their
later sentencing.
In processes before national courts and the
International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague a new
judicial history is unfolding. Its cross-section is
recorded in Pravda u tranziciji.
Jasna Šarčević - Janković
|
