Youth Crime Law Stalls in Bosnia

Judge Kosovic drafted new youth crime legislation that is yet to be passed by the various Bosnian parliaments

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), because of inefficient and highly complex bureaucracy, is perhaps not the easiest country to investigate youth crime and how the state treats its juvenile offenders. That said, juvenile offending is most definitely a hot topic.

I have been assured of that after a meeting Jasmina Kosovic, a judge who sits on the state-level BiH courts, who is widely regarded as an authority in this field by her colleagues, including fellow judges and lawyers.

Kosovic is the author of a new draft law, setting out the protection of and procedures for children and juveniles in criminal law that should be adopted in both entities of BiH.

She claims that the text has been warmly received by international organisations, because of its timely and appropriate treatment of the problems with juvenile offending in Bosnia, and the breadth of her analysis.

However, its passage through the various official channels to the statute books is far from straightforward in BiH.

Under the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement which ended the country’s three-and a half year war, BiH was split into two largely autonomous entities: the Serb-majority Republika Srpska and the Bosniak and Croat-dominated Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“The law is accepted by the parliament of Republika Srpska, but is still waiting to go through all the official procedures before it can be adopted in federal law,” she explains.

BiH has not been able to adopt the law at state level, because both the federation of BiH and Republika Srpska must adopt it first before it can transfer to the higher parliament of BiH.

Even if it does manage to pass through both entities’ chambers, it does not follow that the law will necessarily be adopted by the overarching state of BiH, as the parliament at this level also gets to vote on whether to adopt the draft legislation or not. Such are the shortcomings of the Dayton Peace Agreement.

“Isn’t that quite a paradox?” I ask, as the parliament of Republika Srpska is usually set against anything that has originated from the other entity – the Federation of BiH and this draft legislation has stalled at the federation’s level.

She declines to give a direct answer, but smiles brightly.

“You know, I'm not giving interviews at all, especially not to local press. The reason why you are in my office, and why I accepted your request is because of the need to promote other ways of understanding the problem of juvenile delinquency.

“It is depressing that society and the media are generally only interested in this problem in a narrow field, only when somebody has to be punished. Almost nobody wants to act before, in the phase of preventing [crime]”, she says.

As an example of this narrow-minded interest, she reminds me of one of the most significant cases of youth crime in recent times – the murder of a young man on a tram in Sarajevo in February 2008.

Three youngsters beat up and stabbed an 18-year-old man – identified only as DM – who died from his injuries a day later in Koševo Hospital Sarajevo.

After a public outcry and demonstrations protesting against the government’s failure to improve security and tackle street violence, two of the attackers - who were aged 21 and 19 and deemed fully responsible for criminal acts - were tried and convicted to 15 and 10 years in an adult prison.

A third boy, aged 17 so a juvenile, was tried and sentenced to the maximum penalty of 10 years. All of them are serving their sentences in adult prisons, because there is no juvenile detention facility in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina at all.
 
Kosovic is not at all sure that the law was correctly applied in this case. She claims that the district attorney office didn’t use legal doctrine to convince a court. In her opinion, it was quite a political verdict with a high level of public and media influence.
         
After reading some papers and research published after the European Best Practices of Restorative Justice in the Criminal Procedure conference 2010, it has become clear to me that one of the major policy aims with regard to juvenile offending is for the state to ensure there is a ‘social protection’ network that gives young offenders a real chance to “not do it again”. That is, most European states regard cutting reoffending as the cornerstone of juvenile crime policies.

“The new law will give a key role to social centres [in handling juvenile crime] but it must be part of the whole to be an efficient system,” stresses Kosovic.

Not everyone agrees.

Mirza Ustamujic, an MP of the BiH state-level parliament, claims there are many disadvantages to the new law – not least that the measure are not tough enough on young offenders who have committed serious crimes.
 
Ustamujic insists the draft law is soft on criminals; despite the fact the draft legislation offer four levels of penalties ranging from cautions to custodial sentences.

“In practice, there is no criminal prosecution against serious offences such as murder or attempted murder or sexual abuse. I'm not sure that just apologising would be enough justice for the parents of DM, for example.

“We could not accept these recommended methods in a society [already] impregnated by violence and despair,” says Ustamujic.
 
These arguments hold much weight among the people of Bosnia – particularly those who have suffered or lost loved ones to street violence.

Maybe the conference, Perpetrators Include Our Children, held recently in Sarajevo will offer some answers. I will report back soon.

Ahmed Buric is a journalist and commentator from Sarajevo who is participating in the 2011 Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence.

He will be writing regular updates on his investigation into youth crime, reoffending and rehabilitation in the region.