PRESS BRIEFING BY PRESIDENT OF INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL FOR THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA

Press Briefing

PRESS BRIEFING BY PRESIDENT OF INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL FOR THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA

The recently-elected President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Claude Jorda, told correspondents at a Headquarters press briefing this afternoon that the purpose of his visit to New York was to discuss the future of the Tribunal, as well as a possible timetable for its reform.

Referring to the report of a group of experts commissioned by the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) to study the administrative efficiency of the Tribunal, Mr. Jorda said he was meeting with senior United Nations officials, including the Secretary-General and members of the Security Council, to discuss concerns mentioned in the report and to draft a possible timetable to reform the Tribunal.

He added that he had used the time since his election two and a half months ago to diagnose the Tribunal and its overall functioning. The Tribunal was working well, he said, because it was discharging the duties given to it. Prosecutions were under way, and all three chambers of the Tribunal were meeting and rendering decisions. More cases were being deliberated and more people were being both arrested and prosecuted, he said. There were also longer periods of detention.

While the Tribunal was working well, the situation was not perfect, he continued. Although the Tribunal faced a plethora of cases, the justice system took too long. Some of the Tribunal’s failures and deficiencies could be improved upon. Citing possible “avenues of improvement”, he said that there were some resources which could be tapped into to improve the Tribunal’s productivity.

Mr. Jorda said that he hoped to return to New York in April or May, at which time both he and the Tribunal’s Prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, would address the Security Council and the ACABQ. The Tribunal would hope to show that it had acted on and maximized all the conclusions of the expert group.

Continuing in the path of his predecessors, Mr. Jorda also asked that all persons accused be arrested and brought to The Hague, so that the Tribunal could come up with a fair and rapid response to those situations.

In response to a question, Mr. Jorda said that he was not the kind of judge to lock the door and leave if the Tribunal could not apprehend the “big fish”. The international community must detain and arrest fugitives, including the 46 people that had been accused and had since fled. The Tribunal, moreover, did not merely deal with “small fish”. The very nature of the conflict in the Balkans meant that the Tribunal was dealing with major figures of war. Camp commanders were not “small fry” that could be ignored. Over the last several years, the Tribunal had had some “big fish”, including the case of General Stanislav Galic and other high officials.

ICTY Briefing - 2 - 3 February 2000

A correspondent asked if a change in the Government of Croatia might have an impact on the ability of the Tribunal to round up people accused and indicted. Mr. Jorda said that he would not answer the question, because he was still involved in the Tihomir Blaskic case, and would not mention Croatia since the case was still subject to change.

Asked to describe reform of the Tribunal, Mr. Jorda said that as soon as he had received the report by the group of experts to review the Tribunal, he immediately gave the report to everyone in the Tribunal for review. By the end of February, a smaller group in charge of considering the report would submit its conclusions to the President. “The Tribunal must speak with a single voice and function in a synergetic manner”, Mr. Jorda said. By mid-April, the small group dealing with the report, under the direction of the Registrar, would submit its comments in one single entity.

When asked to respond to a provision of the report calling for the appointment of judges on an ad hoc basis, Mr. Jorda said that he would be cautious about such a proposal, since the report was asking the Tribunal to make better use of existing resources. For complex reasons, the Tribunal did not fully utilize its resources, including hearing chambers. The Tribunal had Mr. Jorda also said that he would study the possibility of adding what he called “ad liten” judges. Such reinforcement could only be obtained if the Tribunal demonstrated that all three hearing halls were used on a permanent basis.

The Tribunal was overloaded, Mr. Jorda continued. If nothing were done, there was no doubt that the Tribunal would face serious difficulties. In his role as President, Mr. Jorda would take all necessary steps to be transparent and state difficulties. The Tribunal faced a paradoxical situation. If all of the 46 people that had fled justice were arrested, the whole thing would explode from the workload.

There should be a general mobilization of energies to confront the Tribunal’s judicial role and perform it properly, he added. The duration of the pre-trial detention was the problem. Many months went by before trials got under way.

A correspondent asked what particular recommendations in the report needed to be addressed in the short-term. Some of the issues had already been settled, Mr. Jorda responded. The report had been rather severe on the use of hearing chambers. It was, however, his immediate ambition that all three chambers were occupied everyday, dealing with at least two simultaneous trials.

Regarding the problem of the defence, all of the accused were entitled to a defence based upon their means, Mr. Jorda said, and certain improvements could be made in that area. The issue of witnesses was very complicated, because even the slightest incident, such as a visa problem, could delay an entire hearing.

“This kind of justice is very complicated", Mr. Jorda said. "We are an experimental laboratory, so to speak.” Taking into consideration all the parameters of working in a region in upheaval, one could imagine the difficulty of the job of a prosecutor. While accepting criticism, it was necessary to see that the Tribunal was the infancy of an experimental international judicial system.

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