The Structured Dialogue on Justice between the EU and BiH presents BiH with a vitally important opportunity to align its judicial institutions with EU standards, including the protection of judicial independence and the restoration of human rights of BiH citizens. To succeed, however, the Structured Dialogue requires the strong support of BiH’s friends in the international community.
The main reason the Structured Dialogue is necessary is that BiH’s judicial system, which was imposed on BiH by a succession of High Representatives, entrenches OHR’s political authority over the judiciary, contravenes the rule of law, and otherwise fails to meet EU and other international standards for judicial institutions. The High Representative has dominated the judiciary by, among other methods, directly and indirectly dictating the outcome of court proceedings and displacing the lawful authority of courts. A High Representative’s decree even forbids any judicial proceeding that “takes issue in any way whatsoever” with his decisions.
In a May 2011 agreement with RS President Milorad Dodik, Baroness Ashton, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, agreed to address the defects in the judicial system that President Dodik raised. She promised that the Structured Dialogue would address a broad range of issues and would present “a comprehensive overview of the whole judiciary” in BiH.
The Structured Dialogue was launched in June 2011 under Štefan Füle, European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighborhood Policy. The EU has hosted one plenary session and one planning session of the Structured Dialogue. According to the EU, there will typically be two plenary sessions per year; the next session will be this Spring. In the meantime, EU officials are holding bilateral consultations with the Structured Dialogue’s various participants.
The Structured Dialogue has already resulted in some constructive recommendations from the European Commission. For example, after November’s Structured Dialogue session, the Commission emphasized the need to completely phase out the presence of international staff in judicial institutions, including by ending the international presence in the BiH Court and Prosecutor’s office by the end of 2012. Recommendations such as these, however, only scratch the surface of what is necessary.
Those supporting continued OHR intervention into the BiH justice system will continue their current efforts to undermine the Structured Dialogue. Thus, for the Dialogue to succeed, BiH’s friends in the international community and all those who genuinely support EU accession must make clear that they fully support the process. The Structured Dialogue will not be quick or easy, but it has the potential to help dramatically reform the badly broken judicial system imposed by the High Representative.
