AT THE COLLEGIUM OF PROSECUTORS, THE CHIEF PROSECUTOR AND ALL THE EMPLOYEES OF THE BIH PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE EXPRESSED ABSOLUTE SUPPORT TO THEIR COLLEAGUES WHOSE EXISTENCE WAS ENDANGERED BY THE SUSPENSION OF THE IPA PROJECT

DURING THE DAY, THE CHIEF PROSECUTOR WILL ASK ALL RELEVANT NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL OFFICIALS TO ENGAGE THEMSELVES IN RESOLVING THE RESULTING SITUATION

At the Collegium of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Chief Prosecutor, fifty-two (52) Prosecutors and all the employees of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina expressed support to their colleagues. Twenty-two (22) employees in total, namely five (5) Prosecutors and seventeen (17) members of other professional staff working on war crimes cases are being financed by the IPA Project and their existence and work are endangered by the suspension of the IPA funds from the European Union.

Even though the financing from the IPA Project was suspended by the end of the last year, the Chief Prosecutor managed to save money by rational use of funds from the IPA Project and he used those savings to pay the salaries for January and February, as well as to pay a part of the March salary to those employees. Unfortunately, the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina is not in the position to secure their further financing from its own budget.

We are concerned to have found out that some prosecutor’s offices and courts have already started laying off their legal officers who were hired as part of the IPA Project. 

Mr. Salihović, the Chief Prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is pleading with all relevant national and international officials to engage themselves in resolving this situation and help overcome this problem, in order to secure existence and further engagement of the aforementioned employees, who are not in any way to be held responsible for the situation they found themselves in.