TI BiH: EU Report Shows No Progress in Fight Against Corruption and Rule of Law in BiH

(Patria) - The European Commission's report showed that Bosnia and Herzegovina has made no progress in the fight against corruption and the rule of law in the past year. Despite the recommendation for "conditional opening of negotiations" which should encourage authorities to finally engage in implementing essential reforms and the EU's readiness to accelerate the enlargement process, the report indicates that BiH authorities have avoided adopting key laws for the rule of law, a small number of "reform laws" were adopted in an unsatisfactory version, and a series of attacks on civil liberties occurred.

Therefore, the assessments of local officials that BiH has made great progress and is the only one in the region to go from candidate status to opening negotiations in 10 months are absurd, as BiH has not fulfilled even the eight conditions for conditional candidate status that the EU granted in December last year, according to Transparency International.

"Among these eight conditions is the guarantee of freedom of expression and media, which cannot be considered a fulfilled condition given the criminalization of defamation in Republika Srpska and the announcement of a series of restrictive laws aimed at suppressing freedom of expression. BiH was also asked to take decisive steps to strengthen the prevention and fight against corruption, where no progress has been recorded, as clearly stated in the report. One of the conditions was the adoption of the law on the prevention of conflict of interest, which has not been adopted at the BiH or FBiH level, and additional steps backward have even been taken with recent amendments to this law in RS. Furthermore, the adoption of two comprehensive laws on judicial reform, namely the new Law on the HJPC and the Law on BiH Courts, which are also among the eight conditions for candidate status, has been missing.

The report also lists a number of criticisms of several "reform laws" recently adopted in the BiH Parliament, which domestic authorities present as a major success that led to a conditional recommendation for opening negotiations. It states that recent amendments to the Law on the HJPC, aimed at verifying the property records of judicial office holders, were adopted in a modified version compared to the Venice Commission's opinion.

"Such changes hinder the effectiveness of the asset declaration system and therefore need to be supplemented," the report states.

It also notes that the new Law on Freedom of Access to Information does not ensure the independence of the appeal process, which civil society organizations have already warned about, as the adopted solution is worse in some segments and will further enable institutions to hide information of public interest from the public.

With such an approach, it is difficult to expect significant progress in the next four months, as nothing of the sort has been achieved in the past four years, i.e., since 2019 when the EU set 14 key priorities in its Opinion, of which BiH has only fully fulfilled one to date.

Due to all of this, TI BiH once again appeals to authorities at all levels to seize the EU's readiness to accelerate the enlargement process and implement essential reforms that are primarily necessary for improving the situation in BiH itself regarding the rule of law and the fight against corruption.