Banja Luka, 13 November 2019 – EU4Justice Project organised a Round Table “Organisation and Role of the Court Experts in Court Proceedings in Council of Europe, EU and BiH”, with the aim to identify good practices on Court Experts that exist in BiH in lines with the common standards of the member countries of the Council of Europe and the European Union, but also, the challenges and the difficulties on this matter.
During her opening speech Ms Isabelle Arnal, Team Leader of EU4Justice Project stated that nowadays to resort to court experts during both the investigative and the trial phases on complex matters ranging from IT, accounting, forensics, building matters is a crucial step in the judicial proceedings.
“The EU4Justice project seeks to promote the interdisciplinary work all along the entire judicial chain in order to pave the way to a more efficient justice system in BiH. This includes Judges, Prosecutors, Law Enforcement Agencies members, and Court Experts.” – added Ms Arnal.
The key issues of the discussion will entail the general and specific eligibility conditions to be selected as a Court Expert, the decisional body, the registration on the list of Court Experts, the duration of the “registration“, the mechanism to review the list, the methodology of work, the relations with the prosecutors, the presentation of the findings before the courts, legislative loopholes if any, and make conclusions.
The keynote speakers are the President of the Association of the Court Experts of Republika Srpska Mr Dragan Salić, with his colleagues’ Court Experts Mr Dušan Iličić and Mr Dane Branković and the EU experts Mr Alain Nuée, former First President of the Court of Appeal of Versailles and Mr Jean Raymond Lemaire, president of the European Expertise and Expert Institute (EEEI). The EU experts will present the “Guidelines on the Role of Experts appointed by a court in judicial proceedings of Council of Europe Member States” that was adopted by the CEPEJ on 12 December 2014.
The participants of the Round Table in Banja Luka were Mr Slobodan Zec, Assistant Minister of Justice of Republika Srpska, Mr Slaven Rosić, Head of Department for European Integrations, Ministry of Interior of Republika Srpska; Mr Miodrag Bajić, Special Prosecutor, Prosecutors Office of Republika Srpska; Ms Svetlana Marić, President of the Criminal Misdemeanor Division of the District Court Banja Luka; Zoran Bulatović, Deputy Chief Prosecutor of District Prosecutors Office Banja Luka;, Sead Žerić, Deputy Chief Prosecutor of District Prosecutors Office Banja Luka, and over 20 Court Experts from Republika Srpska.