Innovative and Individualized Approach to Training of Prosecutors in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Our JACA project (USAID Judiciary Against Corruption Activity – JACA) organized a two-day workshop on March 10-11, 2020 and presented the innovative concept of capacity building for prosecutors from seven of the largest prosecutor’s offices in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Individual Training Program covering topics related to high-level corruption and economic and organized crime cases will be delivered over a period of 48 months by both international and domestic experts, in cooperation with the Judicial and Prosecutorial Training Centers, to 41 select prosecutors to proactively and continually participating in the program based on the principles of voluntarism, commitment and self-criticism.

The event gathered 33 chief prosecutors and prosecutors from Public Prosecutor’s Offices in Sarajevo, Tuzla, Banja Luka, Mostar, Bihać and Zenica, Directors of the Judicial and Prosecutorial Training Centers in the Federation of BiH and Republika Srpska, and was opened by the U.S. Ambassador to BiH, Eric Nelson. Expressing his support to the innovative approach to continuous judicial education, Ambassador Nelson emphasized that ‘a prosecutor must be ready to serve as an example to others. A prosecutor needs to possess courage, personal integrity, and great commitment to the profession’.

A portion of the workshop was focused on the presentation and finalization of an innovative JACA monitoring tool that will actively involve chief prosecutors in measuring the effectiveness of JACA support to their institutions. The new approach in measuring results involves defining “contextual indicators” such as the lack of resources, the lack of political will to fight high-profile government corruption, and other circumstances outside of JACA’s control, in order to measure results of partner institutions receiving JACA support in an objective way.

JACA engaged one internationally renowned prosecutor from Germany and two local prosecutors to develop a base model for the Individual Training Program. As a first step in this process, the two local experts produced an overview of prosecutorial challenges in dealing with high-profile cases that could be overcome by training, and proposed specific areas for training. With the support of the international expert, JACA developed a Competency Checklist as a tool to estimate the competency level of individual participating prosecutors in dealing with HCEOC cases.

Click here for at short video about the event on the official USAID BiH Facebook page