Judiciary in the capacity of a third authority

Without the Judicial Commission participating in the work, the complex building of the judiciary would not succeed. The structure of the judiciary was stipulated in paragraph 4 of the Annex of the Final Award.³⁶⁵⁰ Under this paragraph, the Supervisor shall make the initial appointments of the judges and prosecutors of the District. Upon the entry into force of the Statute, this should be done by the Judicial Commission in agreement with the Supervisor. This obligation was incorporated into Article 64, paragraph 1 of the Statute. However, the provision of item 4 paragraph 2 of Annex of the Final Award, according to which a department should be set up within the District Government to take over duties performed up until then by the Ministers of Justice of the Entities, has never been implemented. The entire judicial administration shall be managed

by the independent Judicial Commission (Article 64 of the Statute).³⁶⁵¹ The third authority, therefore, is made up of this commission, the first instance court and the Appellate Court, the Prosecutor’s Office and a department for legal assistance. The Judicial Commission is made up of 7 members.³⁶⁵² This was the first time ever that all judicial positions were filled. In order to elect a judge, after the model of reassignment of judges following the unification of Germany,³⁶⁵³ a public vacancy announcement would be issued to which all judges had to apply. Only if a judge did not have a “poor record”, he/she had a chance to be re-elected. The Prosecutor’s Office shall be independent from the Judiciary and the District Police (Article 63). Prosecutors shall represent the interests of the District, and shall take part, first and foremost, in criminal proceedings. The previous positions of judges for pre-trial investigation were abolished. The public prosecutors took over their duties. By doing so, the carrying out of the proceedings – modelled after the American system – became more of a burden to the parties to the proceedings. In order to guarantee unhindered access to court, a special department for legal assistance was set up.³⁶⁵⁴ Special attention was paid to the new organisation of the lawyer’s profession.³⁶⁵⁵ Lawyers of the Brčko District were particularly resistant to the realisation and implementation of the results of the Judicial Commission. It took a lot of time and money to establish the Law Society of the Brčko District, modelled after the American Bar Association. Procedural laws for certain areas of the judiciary had to be drafted all over again, such as, for instance, the Criminal Procedure Code³⁶⁵⁶ and the law related to the field of administration (Law on Administrative Disputes of the Brčko District).³⁶⁵⁷ The judiciary has its own budget, which it introduces and defends before the Assembly. Following the adoption thereof it uses the budget independently (Article 69).