Arrest Mektic, but also your friends!

The Ministry of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina, after a series of articles, took pity and shamelessly announced to the public that they are not obliged to suspend Radenko Stanić, accused of war crimes, from his position as Assistant Minister!

We remind you that an indictment for war crimes has been confirmed against Stanić, Assistant Minister Dragan Mektic, but he still holds the position of Assistant Minister of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

That the Ministry of Security is misleading the public is clearly evident from the Law on Civil Service in the Institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to which the Ministry itself refers.

To be perfectly clear, Article 58, Paragraph 2, Point a) stipulates that a preventive suspension is used "if criminal proceedings have been initiated against a civil servant for a criminal offense for which a prison sentence of at least five years is imposed".

To make it even clearer - for the criminal offense with which Mektic's assistant Stanić is charged, a minimum sentence of ten years in prison is prescribed: "War crimes against the civilian population of the Criminal Code of BiH".

What is most confusing is the lack of principle in the work. The Minister of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dragan Mektic, promptly suspended the secretary of that ministry, Bakir Dautbašić, arrested on suspicion of committing the criminal offense of obstructing justice in a case of the BiH Prosecutor's Office. Dautbašić was acquitted of the charges and subsequently returned to work. 

Mektic himself admitted to journalists earlier that if the indictment against Stanić were confirmed, he would suspend his assistant, but after the BiH Prosecutor's Office confirmed the indictment in March last year, Mektic "forgot" about his promise. Perhaps in the fervor of the calls "Arrest Mektic", which mostly came from the Federation of BiH.

The previous practice in similar cases is also illustrated by the case from the BiH Border Police. Admittedly, it concerned an official of Bosniak nationality, so it is possible that the Law does not apply equally to Bosniaks, Serbs, or Croats. In that year, 2007, the then director of the BiH Border Police, Vinko Dumančić, temporarily suspended his deputy, Vahid Alagić. The decision on suspension was preceded by the opening of an investigation by the BiH Prosecutor's Office due to the existence of grounds for suspicion that Alagić and others had committed war crimes. For Stanić, even a confirmed indictment is not enough. Therefore, not only was no indictment filed against Alagić, but the investigation was also suspended in 2009.

A similar fate to Alagić befell the former deputy director of Interpol BiH, Asim Fazlić, who was arrested on suspicion of abuse of office, but was later acquitted of that charge. Igor Crnadak, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of BiH, recently promptly suspended an official suspected of abuse of office and forgery of documents. Such actions are, of course, entirely correct. But it is not correct to have different standards. For some, even suspicion means discredit and suspension from work, while for others, even a confirmed indictment is not enough. Considering the fact of denying verdicts, can we soon expect that, "in accordance with the law", convicted war criminals, criminals, and thieves will sit in our institutions, because someone interprets the law as they please?

What is particularly dangerous in the story about Stanić is the fact that it concerns the Ministry of Security of BiH. If it is unsafe in that ministry, how is it outside of it?