Lawyer Tatjana Savić: My condolences on the death of justice

(Patria) - Lawyer Tatjana Savić posted on her Facebook profile this morning commenting on the verdict in the "Respirators" case.

Her status, titled "My condolences on the death of justice", is reproduced in full below.

"Dear citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, justice died yesterday. It has been suffering from a serious illness for years. Many of us hoped there was a cure, we tried various therapies, but we lost the battle.

Yesterday, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina said that the first-instance verdict in the "Respirators" case is good, that this is how one should judge, that this is justice.

Beware, because even this dead justice can judge you and your loved ones tomorrow. It can happen that someone accuses you of one thing, and you are convicted of something else.

It can happen that they drag you through the media and judge you in the court of public opinion, and the court of justice does not have the courage to tell the public that it is not true, but instead takes media reports and includes them in its verdict.

It is easy to judge based on what you know from the media, but you too can sit in prison innocently and wonder why the media writes like that, whose interests are served, and who holds the hammer of justice in their hand.

I will not explain to you why the stories from the media are not true, but I want to tell you that this verdict has destroyed everything I learned about law at university and for the next twenty years. They say that what I think I know is wrong.

It is not easy to be a judge, but it should be easy to resist pressure, to judge based on law, and at the end of the day, to sleep peacefully knowing that you have judged to the best of your knowledge and belief. This verdict was not rendered based on law, at least not based on the law as I know it.

The first-instance verdict is so bad that it could not even be amended and the accused acquitted; it had to be overturned and returned for a retrial. Your problem, dear citizens, is that this verdict is now judicial practice and can be applied to you tomorrow.

I am not claiming that the accused are innocent or guilty; I am claiming that the verdict is based on standards on which it should not have been, that the proceedings had to be reopened to properly apply the law.

This country has honest prosecutors and honest judges, but it lacks those who have the courage to raise their voices against pressure, and few have the courage to say: 'I am a judge, and I will judge according to the law, based on evidence, and nothing else!'

Finally, for who knows what time, I will quote my professor who used to say: 'A country with a professional and independent judiciary has hope, because the judiciary is a corrective factor for all illegal actions committed by other branches of power and a factor for the protection of the ordinary citizen.' With such a judiciary, hope has also died.

In the name of the rule of law, in the name of what I know and believe in, in the name of what I want to leave to my child, I will fight for at least the theory and the professional public to distance themselves from such a verdict, I will fight so that none of you experience this again. I will continue my battles with windmills, aware of my chances, but with a clear conscience."