Policy brief provides a critical review of three key arguments for the anonymisation of judicial and prosecutorial acts (the unavailability of a legal basis for the proactive disclosure of acts of judicial institutions on the internet, the protection of personal data, and the presumption of innocence) and indicates that each of them can relativize an array of contra arguments. The balance of arguments and contra arguments indicates that current trend of general and uncritical anonymisation of judicial and prosecutorial acts in BiH need to be substantially revised and allow the judicial institutions to communicate with the public to ensure a proper balance between the public interest and the right of access to information on one hand, and the protection of personal data of the parties in the criminal proceedings, on the other hand. Pointing out that it is particularly important that the judicial institutions in BiH provide full and detailed information about criminal proceedings for the most serious types of crimes - such as war crimes and organized crime - policy brief offers recommendations for improving the regulation and practice in this area in BiH.

 

This publication is prepared as part of the project “Protecting Information vs. Protecting Public Interest: Towards an Optimum Balance between Public Interest and the Protection of Information in Criminal Law Proceedings in Bosnia and Herzegovina”, implemented by Center for Social Research Analitika and the Association of Prosecutors of Federation BiH. 

 

This publication is published by the support of the American People through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents of this report are the sole responsibility of the Author and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.