Today, the Director of the Independent Judicial Commission (IJC) for BiH, Judge Rakel Surlien, visited Banja Luka together with the Chief of the Monitoring and Implementation Department, Judge Kari Kiesilainen and the Deputy Chief, Timothy Hughes. Together with members of the IJC Banja Luka office, they met with the Presidents of the High Judicial and High Prosecutorial Councils to discuss the need to increase the tempo and speed of the review process of judges and prosecutors. The necessity of improving the appointments process, and the recent announcement of 65 vacancies for judges and 11 vacancies for prosecutors were also tackled. The implication of these announcements is that almost one quarter of the members of the judicial and prosecutorial service in the RS will be renewed through new appointments in the forthcoming months.
Furthermore, Judge Surlien met with Dragan Kalinic, the Speaker of the RS National Assembly and Mladen Ivanic, the RS Prime Minister. They accepted a copy of the Strategy Plan of the IJC for judicial reform in BiH, for which they have agreed to provide full support and co-operation within their constitutional mandate. The Strategy Plan foresees two main goals for the IJC:
- To establish a truly independent judiciary
- To increase its quality and efficiency
Problems pertaining to the lack of premises for the Councils and the Supreme Court and the Republic Public Prosecutor’s Office were comprehensively discussed and assurances were given by the Prime Minister that these problems will be resolved in the near future.
Judge Surlien will visit Banja Luka soon to update the RS authorities on the status of the review process.