Manipulation of Former Police Officers Shameful

Principal Deputy High Representative Raffi Gregorian met today with representatives of the decertified police officers.

PDHR Gregorian said that the obvious manipulation of this group was “shameful”. After the meeting he said it was clear that these former officers are deliberately being given incomplete information by politicians who want to “shift blame for their failure to the OHR”.

BiH’s institutions recognise that the UNSC letter of April 2007 does not offer preferential treatment for decertified police officers to return to law enforcement.

On 29 June 2007 the Council of Ministers took a decision to pass the UNSC Presidency letter to the competent ministries at Entity, Canton and Brcko District levels for implementation.

Nine Cantons and Brcko District have already passed amendments that meet the demands of the UNSC letter.  The BiH Parliamentary Assembly and the Federation Parliament will do the same in the coming days. The Repubika Srpska and Canton 10 will need to comply with the same requirements.

Across most of BiH the legal conditions set out in the United Nations Security Council Presidency letter of April 2007, under which decertified police officers can apply for vacant positions in police bodies, are being met.

The OHR has done more than anyone to get the UN to address the plight of decertified police officers. “The OHR spent three years lobbying the UN for a review process of the certification decisions taken by the IPTF in 2002,” Gregorian told former officers today. The UN rejected this possibility but decided to lift the lifetime ban on employment in the police. “This is not an ideal solution, but it is the only solution offered by the UN,” said Gregorian.

The fact that most of the responsible institutions have made the necessary changes shows that there is no dilemma on the meaning of the UNSC letter.