The president of the Center for the Renewal of International Law, Goran Petronijević, stated that today, along with the doyen of Serb legal practice, Branislav Tapušković, he will attend the hearing at the Court of BiH for the President of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, to observe the proceedings, which, in his assessment, have so far been rife with irregularities and illegalities, with an obvious political intention to expedite it.
Petronijević emphasized that one of the illegalities was the decision to separate the proceedings against Dodik and the acting director of the Official Gazette of Republika Srpska, Miloš Lukić.
“When it was the second hearing, I pointed out that such a type of haste in conducting proceedings is not characteristic of that or any other court,” Petronijević said.
According to him, this indicates that there is a certain political need to speed up the process, and this fact implies that the one accelerating knows what decision will be made.
He explained that the right to a fair trial and the right to a trial within a reasonable time can be violated by speed because the defense cannot prepare for witnesses and for other reasons.
“This was often applied to us by this unfortunate International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. So, this is that model, that culture, this tribunalization of that unfortunate judiciary there in BiH, as well as here in Serbia,” he said.
Petronijević stated that the proceedings against Dodik and Lukić should not have been separated.
“What would have been lost so much if one hearing was postponed, but nothing, only in that way it was shown and proved that there are tremendous pressures to accelerate the process,” he said.
Petronijević mentioned that the previous judge in the case, Mirsad Strika, allegedly tried to be objective, but it was evident that “he did not manage well.”
“He strained, the poor man, to show it, to appear as if he was, but it didn’t work… I have information from colleagues about this judge who is now appointed /Sena Uzunović/. It’s clear that she is there with some significant ‘background’,” Petronijević said.
He stressed that these are “things that must not happen.”
“You know, the president of the court is in prison, the court is falling apart, everything reeks of corruption and scandals, and you are judging the president of one of the entities. And you behave as if nothing is happening and as if the court is in America, and this is happening in unfortunate Bosnia,” he said.
Petronijević indicated that the Center for the Renewal of International Law has made a schedule for at least two lawyers from the Center to be present at every trial.
“Tapušković and I are coming to Sarajevo to follow how the process is conducted. Tapušković is 86 years old, he is a doyen of Serbian legal practice, he was the president of the Belgrade and Serbian [lawyers’] chambers, he was a friend of the Court in The Hague for Milošević. He defended I don’t know who in this area, and he expressed a desire to come and see the wonder of what is happening there and to see what he has not seen before,” Petronijević told Srna.
At the Court of BiH, hearings in the proceedings conducted against the President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik and the acting director of the Official Gazette Miloš Lukić for disrespecting the decisions of Christian Schmidt are scheduled for today.
Both hearings are scheduled for 1:00 PM in courtroom number four, as announced by the Court on its website, even though Lukić’s case was separated from Dodik’s in January by Judge Mirsad Strika of the Court of BiH, who led this process before the case was assigned to Judge Sena Uzunović.
Source: RTRS
