The Guidelines for publishing prosecutorial and court decisions on Internet pages should be accepted and respected by all representatives of judicial bodies, because they represent a balance between the right to privacy and the right to access information, participants in a meeting held in Travnik conclude.
A unified practice of giving information related to war crime trials will improve the cooperation between journalists and representatives of judicial institutions, participants at a meeting held in Zenica conclude.
The Balkans Investigative Reporting Network in Bosnia and Herzegovina, BIRN BiH, launches its three-year strategy aimed at raising awareness about the difficulties victims of wartime rape face, and encouraging them to speak up.
In the year ahead the Association of Court Reporters, AIS, will organise five workshops for journalists in local communities throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina with the aim of ensuring more objective and professional reporting on judiciary – this was concluded at an annual AIS conference.
The practice of non-selective anonymisation of war crime verdicts and other major criminal offences led to a justified reaction from the public and damaged the reputation of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, it was said at a roundtable discussion in Sarajevo.
Journalists, who follow trials before courts in Brcko District, say that access to information from courts is difficult for them, so they cannot always make reports in a timely manner.
The Association of Court Reporters, AIS, holds a meeting at which participants discuss results of workshops attended by representatives of judicial institutions and the media in Doboj and Trebinje and agree on presenting the results of the campaign - “Stop Censoring War Crimes”.
The collaboration between the media and the District Prosecution in Doboj should be “deepened” by hiring a spokesperson to work with that institution, so citizens can obtain information on time.
Representatives of judicial institutions and media from Trebinje consider that the anonymisation of court documents is unnecessary, because trials are public and there is no need to protect identity of perpetrators in case they have already been identified.
The Association of Court Reporters, AIS, will organize a campaign titled “Stop Censoring War Crimes” with the aim of stopping the anonymyzation of court documents and restricting access to audio and video recordings from trials held before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.