Is SIPA violating the law by acting on cantonal prosecutor's orders: Who and why is damaging the BiH Budget?

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - Whether SIPA acts on requests or orders from cantonal prosecutor's offices is a question received by the Ministry of Security. It came from parliamentary benches, at a time when we are witnessing that in the past period, starting from the end of 2015 onwards, SIPA has continuously and intensively acted on the orders of the Cantonal Prosecutor's Office of Sarajevo Canton.

It is clear that according to Article 3 of the Law on the State Investigation and Protection Agency of BiH, this is not within its jurisdiction, given that there are cantonal and federal law enforcement agencies available to cantonal and entity prosecutor's offices.

Precisely because of this, SDA MP Amir Fazlić requested an answer and clarification "on the basis of which legal provisions the management of SIPA is doing this, how operational and investigative teams are formed with the Cantonal Prosecutor's Office of Sarajevo Canton, what is the legal basis for such actions, whether this is a disruption of scope/jurisdiction". Director Perica Stanić will surely have his hands full preparing this answer.

The State Investigation and Protection Agency claims that everything is in accordance with the law, but since SIPA is financed from the BiH budget, as stipulated by Article 2, paragraph 2 of the SIPA Law, the question is whether the BiH Budget has been damaged in this way and whether its resources are being used and spent for the benefit and for the tasks within the jurisdiction of other authorities, specifically entity and cantonal ones, and whether this directly harms the Budget of BiH institutions.

Therefore, the Ministry of Security of BiH will start seeking the following information: how many cases/orders/tasks SIPA has executed from 2015 onwards on the orders of the Cantonal Prosecutor's Office of Sarajevo Canton or other prosecutor's offices, other than the Prosecutor's Office of BiH, on what basis, and what funds were spent for their realization.

Also, the management of SIPA will need to provide a detailed report on this, indicating the number of cases and actions performed in this regard with the costs incurred in connection with those actions.

- I call on the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina to investigate these allegations and to investigate whether such actions are legal and if there are elements of any criminal offense prescribed by the Criminal Code of BiH, especially against official or other responsible duty, and whether the budget of BiH institutions has been damaged in this way and by such actions - Fazlić says in a letter to the Ministry of Security.

Tasks within SIPA's jurisdiction

- prevention, detection and investigation of criminal offenses within the jurisdiction of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter: the Court), and in particular: organized crime, terrorism, war crimes, human trafficking and other criminal offenses against humanity and values protected by international law, as well as serious financial crime.

- gathering information and data on criminal offenses from point a) of this paragraph, as well as monitoring and analyzing the security situation and phenomena that contribute to the emergence and development of crime;

- providing assistance to the Court and the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter: the Prosecutor's Office) in gathering information, as well as executing orders of the Court and the Chief Prosecutor of BiH (hereinafter: the Prosecutor);

- witness protection:

- implementation of international agreements on police cooperation and other international instruments within its jurisdiction;

- criminalistics expertise;

- other tasks prescribed by law and other regulations

- SIPA processes data and maintains records in accordance with the Law on Police Officials of BiH, the Law on Personal Data Protection of BiH, and other regulations of BiH.