Justice Report Agency
[[thumb|Justice Report is a specialized agency for reporting on war crimes trials
{| |- | Editor || Erna Mačkić |- | Includes ||
Justice Report
Radio Justice
TV Justice
|- | Launched by || BIRN BiH in 2005 |} ]] Justice Report is a specialized agency for reporting on war crimes trials held in local judicial institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This ongoing project, launched in 2005 by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in BiH, includes its flagship website Justice Report, a radio program called Radio Justice, and a 30 minute monthly television program called TV Justice.
These programs provide a case-by-case bilingual archive of information open to the public, researchers, and the media by including daily reports from war crime courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina and coverage of trials before the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Besides courtside reporting, the project includes investigative reporting and analyses of local and regional transitional justice efforts.
Justice Report
History
BIRN BiH began producing Justice Report in 2005 as a part of the Justice Series: Media, Civil Society and War Crimes Trials Program, which aims to increase understanding of and support for the work of war crimes trials in BiH and the region. Since then, the BIRN BiH team has monitored and reported testimonies and trial proceedings from the War Crimes Chamber of the Court of BiH. In 2010, the program expanded to cover the 16 local Cantonal and District courts of Bosnia and Herzegovina. A total of 27 BIRN BiH journalists are covering war crime trials from the State and local Courts in BiH, as well as in The Hague.
Highlights
As of 2013, BIRN BiH has produced over 400 Justice Report editions and written close to 20,000 courtside reports, analyses, and investigations. In addition, the BIRN BiH team has produced over 2.500 various Radio Justice editions and 50 TV Justice magazines.
Over the years Justice Report has done interviews with some of the most prominent people dealing with transitional justice issues today including the Constitutional Court president, Valerija Galic; the Court of BiH judge, Azra Miletic; deputy chief prosecutor for war crimes in Serbia, Bruno Vekaric; ICTY’s president, Theodor Meron; ICTY’s chief prosecutor, Serge Brammertz; historian Bojan Dimitrijevic; president of Zagreb based association Documenta, Vesna Terselic; doctor Branka Antic-Strauber; director of the Agency for Personal Data Protection, Petar Kovacevic; and attorneys across the region including Damir Alic, Edina Residovic, Srdja Popovic, and Anto Nobilo.
Justice Report is republished daily by some of the most leading media outlets in the country and also in media outlets abroad such as Orbis magazine, BOSTEL radio and television in Chicago, and Peta Strana Svijeta magazine in New York. The Justice Report website receives over 400,000 visits annually, mostly from BiH, but also from the United States, Croatia, Serbia, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, Russia and Australia.
Advocacy
In addition to reporting on war crimes trials, Justice Report also advocates on behalf of a number of causes relating to the judiciary and media within BiH.
In June 2013, BIRN BiH launched a campaign against the practice of anonymization that had been implemented by the Bosnian High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council and the Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina. This practice meant the refusal to disclose names of those who had been sentenced under second instance verdicts for war crimes. Justice Report attempted to find a solution to this issue through advocacy and legal means, as well as by preparing frequent reports about the anonymization problems in local communities.
Mirela Hukovic-Hodzic, BH Radio 1 journalist, pointed out that refusing to disclose names of persons, who have been sentenced under second instance verdicts for war crimes, represented a type of “crime against humanity”, adding that all media had a responsibility to report about this problem.
The campaign proved to be a success as in June 2014, the Court of BiH revised its rulebook and eliminated the anonymisation of names.
Team
Justice Report Editor in Chief |
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BIRN Justice Report Journalist and Deputy Editor |
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Justice Report Journalist and Deputy Editor |
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Justice Report Journalist / Court Monitor |
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Justice Report Journalist / Court Monitor |
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Justice Report Journalist / Court Monitor |
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Justice Report Journalist / Court Monitor |
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Justice Report Journalist / Court Monitor |
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TV Justice Editor |
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Radio Justice Editor |
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Multimedia Assistant |