The Effects of War Crime Processing before Domestic Courts on the Reconciliation Process in Bosnia and Herzegovina Efekti procesuiranja ratnih zločina pred domaćim sudovima na procese pomirenja u Bosni i Hercegovini

The Effects of War Crime Processing before Domestic Courts on the Reconciliation Process in Bosnia and Herzegovina Efekti procesuiranja ratnih zločina pred domaćim sudovima na procese pomirenja u Bosni i Hercegovini

MAHMUTOVIĆ, Dževad
GURDA, Vedad

During the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-1995), severe war crimes were committed, including even genocide. The war crimes, committed during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), have been processed at several different levels (from international to local). The paper focuses on the processing of war crimes committed in BiH before domestic, Bosnian courts and the contribution of these processes to the reconciliation process in BiH. We made an empirical research and collected data on the attitude of victims and, for the first time, of perpetrators of war crimes about three research domains: purpose and expectations from war crime processing, subjects’ perception of the judicial system in BiH that processes war crimes, and perception of the past results of war crime processing in BiH. The following conclusions were made: the subjects express their negative opinion about the proceedings; most subjects expect processing to reveal the truth and contribute to their prevention in the future; all the subjects have a negative opinion about judicial institutions that process war crimes in BiH; subjects believe that the punishments for the crimes do not achieve the purpose of punishing; processing contributed to easing victims’ suffering but also helped convicts reject their psychological burden. Sažetak: Tokom rata u BiH (1992-1995), počinjeni su teški zločini, pa čak i genocid. Njihovo procesuiranje odvija se na više različitih nivoa. U ovom se radu analizira procesuiranje ratnih zločina pred domaćim, bosanskohercegovačkim sudovima i doprinos ovih suđenja pomirenju u BiH. Provedeno je empirijsko istraživanje i prikupljeni su podaci o stavovima žrtava i, po prvi put, osuđenika za ratne zločine o tri grupe pitanja: svrha i očekivanja od procesuiranja ratnih zločina, percepcija ispitanika o pravosudnom sistemu u Bosni i Hercegovini koji sudi za ratne zločine i percepcija dosadašnjih rezultata rada na procesuiranju ratnih zločina u Bosni i Hercegovini. Zaključeno je sljedeće: ispitanici izražavaju svoje negativno mišljenje o procesuiranju; većina ispitanika očekuje da će procesuiranje otkriti istinu, i doprinijeti njihovoj prevenciji u budućnosti; svi ispitanici imaju negativno mišljenje o pravosudnim institucijama koje procesuiraju ratne zločine u BiH; ispitanici smatraju da se kaznama za zločine ne postiže svrha kažnjavanja; procesuiranje doprinosi ublažavanju patnji žrtava, ali, također, pomaže osuđenicima da se oslobode psihološkog tereta.

Article
PeerReviewed

ISSN 2303-5706

Social Sciences Research Center of International Burch University

2014-04

2363