Overview of Policing in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Overview of Policing in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Author(s): Denis Hadžović, Armin Kržalić, Alma Kovačević
Subject(s): Politics, Governance, Government/Political systems, Security and defense
Published by: Centar za Sigurnosne Studije
Keywords: BIH; security; police; policing; overview;
Summary/Abstract: The police are one of the basic components of the government structure responsible for public security. The main role of the police in a democratic society includes maintenance of public peace and order, protection and respecting of fundamental citizens' rights and freedoms, prevention and fight against crime, serving citizens and providing them with necessary assistance. The police are a critical structure in each security sector reform process, particularly in post-conflict societies and transition countries that are on the path towards modern democracy. External and internal security is extremely significant for a country that endeavors to provide its citizens with a safe environment and progress. Although countries tend to prevent more external threats, internal security challenges of this day and age may be equally destructive and destabilizing. In order for a country to adequately respond to serious internal crisis, it must implement substantial reforms that will enable its security forces to fight against terrorism, organized crime, and corruption that represent the plague of modern times. On its path towards the Euro-Atlantic integrative path, Bosnia and Herzegovina has made significant steps forward towards democracy and establishment of the rule of law; but still the criminal justice system has not been recognized by its citizens as the service that must serve citizens. Oversight, transparency and responsibility are still terms that are not in the focus of the government institutions in carrying out their duties and assignments for creating the proper security environment. The image of rule of law and public peace and order is based on their personal perception, not the factual state; therefore, involvement of civil society in this area is more than needed. As human security is one of the priorities of our overall work, we were driven by the presupposition that conducting such research is in the interest of all citizens who have every right to expect the country to provide them with a level of security that is essential for the development of democracy, rule of law and full protection of human rights pursuant to local legislation and international humanitarian law. This research does not tend to reach a final judgment on the complex matter of police acting in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but to draw attention to relevant local subjects to the matter that neither has been sufficiently discussed nor written about in the past several years. There is an impression that the area of police was only in the interest of the international community endeavoring to support local authorities in building the police in BiH on democratic principles. Obscurely, a small literary work of art on police reform and capacity building is contradictory to the interest and resources directed by the donors into this area. In a society which, as that of Bosnia and Herzegovina, largely considers itself democratic, it is necessary to achieve a greater degree of being informed and provide for the further education of police officers, citizens and representative of citizens. This would subsequently result in a rising awareness of how important is to require accountability as well as to improve the work of police agencies in terms of achieving efficiency and professionalism. Ultimately, all this should reflect on increasing the security level of citizens and human rights protection, which is one of the pre-requirements BiH must fulfill on its path to European structures accession By viewing the accessible literature, we have seen that this area is lacking a clear analysis of the police system condition in BiH resulting from a thorough overview of reform efforts from the war completion period up to date, as well as an analysis of the police structure system after 2008; more precisely after the new police organizations were established at the state level. Police officials often say that even after all the reforms were carried out, their work is burdened by the lack of resources, inadequate training, and insufficient and worn out equipment. Over the last period, we have borne witness to frequent discussions on how necessary it is to redefine the relationship between politics and operational police activities. It is indisputable that the overall process of police system reform in BiH was burdened by different and obviously incompatible political interests. The culmination of the political dispute over this, possibly the most significant lever and attribute of power, was reached over the period from 2004 to 2008. During the overall police reform process which is basically the continuous process, this specific period was designated by certain analysts as an attempt of restructuring or institutional reorganization of the police system in BiH. An unsuccessful outcome and partial support to the agreed reform led to the end of the participation of all society instances and their interest in how functional the police system is. Not any assessment on the reform success has ever been carried out so far nor has the monitoring of thrift, efficiency and effectiveness of newly established police structure. At the completion of the European Union Police Mission, the support to the police organizations in BiH continued through multilateral and bilateral support programs, which within their scope do not reach the essential and institutional reforms, but deal with the improvement of work and functionality of certain organizations. The goal of this research is therefore to provide the fundamental insight into the existing condition of the police system in BiH after the latest reform/restructuring was completed in 2008. Basically, this research is an attempt which should inspire or perhaps direct the necessary debate on efficiency of the system built up within the police sector; such debate is undoubtedly to become extremely prone to upcoming challenges in order to reach the European standards in the fight against organized crime, terrorism prevention and strengthening of safety and security through integrated border management. The results of this research are based upon the analysis of adequate laws and regulations prescribing the work of the Ministries of Interior and police organizations, the information on the budget resources obtained from official sources of the government institutions, and the interviews with the officials from the Ministries of Interior, Brcko District Police of BiH and other police organization in BiH. The research work lasted for five months whereas the approaches used were descriptive investigative (the interview and focus group) and quantitative (the desk and contents analysis). Over the working period we faced certain limitations, mostly related to the inaccessibility of the public to the legislative regulations, particularly those of Cantonal police organizations; this is why this research was partially limited to the work of those organizations which either make their legal regulations and bylaws accessible to the public, or which provided them to us at our request. This research project on police reform in BiH represents our modest contributions to the aspirations for embracing the highest democratic principles in this area of the state government. This research is comprised of five chapters: historical overview of police system reform in BiH; organizations, numbers and competencies; financing of the police system in BiH; structural analysis of jurisdictions in legislation and in practice; internal and international cooperation and final conclusions.

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