(continua/follows)

3. Inadequate qualification of the Tribunal's judges
to try people due to lack of knowledge of the
historic, political and civilisation context in which
the events of relevance to the trial took place

In the Tribunal's work so far, the ignorance is in
evidence among judges and the officials of the
Prosecutor's Office (Chief Prosecutor, Deputy
Prosecutor and other personnel in the
Prosecutor's Office) of the social and historic
milieux in which the events under trial took place
and in which the protagonists of those events,
including the accused, lived and came from. These
officials have come from different parts of the
world and, as a rule, do not even speak the
languages spoken in the former SFRY. Their
nowledge of the history, political situation,
customs, habits, and other civilisation features of
the region, is more than inadequate and often
based almost exclusively on the knowledge gained
through the media. To illustrate this by an
example, at the trial of the Celebici case, when
one of the judges asked who the Ustashi
mentioned in the proceedings were, the
Prosecutor did not know how to answer.

This situation leads to the judges, whose
half-knowledge and ignorance are otherwise
based on information gained through the media,
falling prey in the course of proceedings to further
manipulations and accepting claims also based on
media and other propaganda campaigns. All this
leads to the accumulation of untruths and
half-truths that are increasingly difficult to
challenge. Even the Prosecutor's Office's stands
are sometimes drastically unfavourable for the
accused not out of malice but due to inadequate
knowledge or a distorted perception of particular
issues that people at the Prosecutor's Office
have.

Having in mind the perception of the Yugoslav
crisis world-wide, its causes, historical
background and development, this state of affairs
clearly produces negative effects primarily and to
the largest extent against the accused on the Serb
side.



4.Disrespect of the assumption of innocence/
establishment of the assumption of guilt

We have seen that The Hague Tribunal has been
defined as the organ for "the prosecution of
persons responsible" (i.e. according to the French
version "persons presumed responsible") and that
its set-up, where the institutional inseparability of
the court Chambers and the Prosecutor's Office
rejudices the the necessary impartiality of trials
required by modern law, and particularly respect
for the presumption of innocence stipulated in
rticle 14, paragraph 2, of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which
reads: "Everyone charged with a criminal offence
shall have the right to be presumed innocent until
proved guilty according to law." (the presumption
of innocence is even stipulated in Article 21,
paragraph 3, of the Tribunal's Statute, although
the Tribunal has been defined, set up and is
unctioning in contravention of that presumption).

Disrespect for the presumption of innocence/
establishment of the presumption of guilt has in
practice been particularly pronounced through the
presentation of the indictments of the general
context in which the events on trial took place and
particularly in the indictments against
high-ranking military or political leaders. These
presentations of the general context often make
up quite a large part of the total text of the
indictments. Through this general context, a
political situation is described where whole
peoples are charged with particular behaviours,
with the "political guilt" of the Serb people coming
to full expression (hegemonic aspirations, terror
against minorities, ethnic cleansing, aspirations
towards creating a Greater Serbia, etc). This, by
the way, contravenes the principle of individual
responsibility that has been generally accepted in
modern criminal law. It also contravenes the
raison d'etre of any criminal court, including The
Hague Tribunal, that was, as is often mentioned in
the debates in its favour, established precisely in
order to remove collective responsibility from a
people for the crimes committed by individuals.
Based on the established claims within a general
context, individual responsibility is then derived.
Namely, the thus established general context
further allows the Prosecutor - at least according
o his own view of things and as can be
unequivocally concluded from his behaviour - to
provide very scant information on what
specifically the defendants did, when, where and
against whom they committed the crimes they are
charged with, etc. As a result, the accused face a
situation where they have to defend themselves
both against the general context allegations and
gainst inaccurate concrete allegations, in fact to
defend themselves against whatever one can
conclude based on such indictments that the
Prosecutor has charged them with.

The broadly defined and perceived concept of
so-called "command responsibility" also
contributes to undermining the assumption of
nnocence and the request for individual and
subjective responsibility. Here, the relationship
between the accused and the event for which he
is on trial can be so distant and indirect that
neither according to his formal powers nor
ccording to his real influence he could have
contributed to either the direct commission of the
given crime or could have prevented it in any way,
nor could he even have learned about it. A typical
example is the case of Momcilo Krajisnik who, as
President of the Assembly of Republika Srpska,
could not have either formally or factually
influenced the events and crimes that he is
lamed for.

In a situation when an individual's responsibility
is largely based on a broad political and even
historic context and in a situation when neither
the judges nor the employees of the Prosecutor's
Office have any sufficient knowledge about that
context, as already mentioned, it is hardly
ossible to establish facts correctly and apply law
in an appropriate manner. There are even certain
absurd situations, as in the Tadic case, for
instance, when the Prosecutor arguing in favour of
the claim on the continued tendency among Serbs
towards the "ethnic cleansing" of other peoples
also proposed a study of a certain "expert
witness" whose identity had been kept
confidential (expert witness P) and proved the
mentioned tendency by referring to a paper by
historian Vasa Cubrilovic presented on 7 March
1937 to the Serbian Cultural Club. Cubrilovic was
in favour of Yugoslavia concluding a treaty on the
xchange of population with Turkey and possibly
with Albania, just as already done by other Balkan
countries following the Balkan wars, and the
practice commonplace at the time, which only we
had not resorted to. Cubrilovic presented the
mentioned proposal in a private capacity, as a
scholar, and, as is well known, this proposal was
never accepted by the authorities.

In determining the above mentioned general
olitical-historical-legal context, it is noteworthy
that there is a discrepancy between the claims
made by the Prosecutor's Office and the contents
of the decisions made by the Tribunal and
presentations by some of the judges, who are
incidentally eminent legal experts, in their
research papers. Thus there is in the indictments
the claim that the former Yugoslav republics
decided to `leave' Serb-dominated Yugoslavia.
This is regarded as acceptable whereas the
political reactions of the Serbian people are
treated as criminal acts (the establishment of the
municipal communities permitted under the
Constitution, or of the representative bodies
through which they could articulate their interests,
etc.). That Serbian people does not wish to be
dominated by other nations in the separated
republics and wishes either to preserve the SFRY
or to remain even in the truncated Yugoslav state
or even to have its own canton in the seceded
republic. At the same time, one of the most
minent judges of the Tribunal and its former
President Professor Antonio Cassese in his book
Self-Determination of Peoples, A Legal
Re-Appraisal (Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 1995) noted that secession (external
elf-determination) by the former Yugoslav
republics contravened both international law and
the Yugoslav constitutional system. This drastic
ifference in the assessment of events is of crucial
importance when determining the above
mentioned context because in the given example
the reactions of the Serb people represented the
defence of their own rights against the
unconstitutional secession that was contrary to
international law. The claims by the Prosecutor
and the statements by the Tribunal were contrary
o certain generally known facts - thus it is
generally known world wide that in Yugoslavia
which according to claims was dominated by the
Serbs from 1945 to 1980 virtually absolute power
was wielded by Josip Broz Tito who was
alf-Croat and half-Slovene as well as that after
that there was a practically con-federal system in
place that did not allow the predominance of any
of the republics (those better versed and the
Prosecutor's Office and the Tribunal should be
among them, know that the percentage of Serbs in
the SFRY was lower than the percentage of
Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina, that in the
period from the Second World War up to the
outbreak of the war in the early 1990s only one
erb served as Federal Prime Minister, notably
Petar Stambolic in the 1960s, that in the JNA the
command over the most important sectors like air
force, air defences, the Navy, etc. was almost as
a rule given to Croats and Slovenes and that the
percentage of Serbs in the JNA command staff
was lower than the percentage of the Serbs in the
total population, etc.).













5.Violations of human rights protected by
International Law during the arrest and the
transfer of the accused to the Tribunal

The Rule 58 of Procedure and Evidence of the
Tribunal stipulates: "The obligations laid down in
Article 29 of the Statute shall prevail over any
legal impediment to the surrender or transfer of
the accused or of a witness to the Tribunal which
may exist under the national law or extradition
treaties of the State concerned."

We shall not at the moment tackle in detail the
question whether an act of a hierarchically inferior
legal power, which is supposed to deal only with
the procedure and evidence before the Tribunal
(since the legislative competence conferred to the
judges by the Statute of the Tribunal is limited to
those questions only), can determine the relations
between a superior act and some other acts of a
different nature. But we could observe that the
above quoted article does not include the
obligation of respect of the human rights
guaranteed by the International law during the
arrest and the transfer of the accused to the
Tribunal (this obligation cannot in any way be
erogated since those rights belong to the jus
cogens).

In many cases the accused were arrested, either
by the state authorities or by some informal
groups, outside the procedures prescribed by
ational laws and they were transferred to the
Tribunal also without applications of such
procedures. Those accused were also deprived of
the right to the protection by a court. This was the
case for example with Mr. Milomir Stakic, Mr.
Momir Talic, Mr. Dragan Nikolic, Mr. Slobodan
Milosevic, Mr. Steve Todorovic, Mr. Momcilo
Krajisnik, the twins Mr. Miroslav and Milan
Vuckovic etc.

The above mentioned conducts are contrary in the
first place to the provisions of the Article 9
paragraphs 1 and 4 of the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights which reads as
follows:

"Article 9

1. Everyone has the right to the liberty and the
security of person. No one shall be subjected to
arbitrary arrest or detention. No one shall be
deprived of his liberty except on such grounds and
in accordance with such procedure as are
established by law.

. . .

4. Anyone who is deprived of his liberty by arrest
or detention shall be entitled to take proceedings
before a court, in order that that court may decide
without delay on the lawfulness of his detention
and order his release if the detention is not
lawful."

The above mentioned conducts are also in
contravention of similar provisions of other
international documents as well as of general
rinciples of criminal procedure as recognized by
civilized nations.

Since the persons in question were arrested and
transferred to the Tribunal in an unlawful way,
they are entitled to a restitutio in integrum.



6.Breach of the provisions of the Tribunal's Statute
and the Rules of Procedure and Evidence in
atypical conditions of trying Slobodan Milosevic

Finally, in the case against Slobodan Milosevic that is
taking place in an atypical manner, as a result of his
refusal to recognise the Tribunal, when the accused
appeared before the Tribunal for the first time, the
indictment should have been read out to him in accordance
with Article 20 of the Statute and Rule 62 of Procedure
and Evidence. This was not done because the Tribunal
interpreted the accused 's reply to the question of
whether he wished to be read out the indictment that was:
"That is your problem" as the accused 's refusal to have it
read out to him. The Tribunal was under the obligation to
read out the indictment nevertheless in accordance with
the mentioned Articles and the defendant's reply, which
was neither negative nor positive but boiled down to a
refusal to give a reply, should by no means have been
interpreted as negative and, contrary to the defendant's
interest, make the Tribunal decide not to read it out
because this was a question relating to the defendant's
procedural right where the interpretations must always go
in the direction which favours the accused more.

Given the mentioned omission it can be considered that
the proceedings against Slobodan Milosevic was not
initiated in a legally proper manner.



* * *


Bearing in mind all of the above examples and our wish to
contribute to all the trials before the Tribunal taking place
in accordance with international law and that human rights
and fundamental freedoms of the accused be respected
and that the perpetrators of violations of international
humanitarian law are tried and judged in a legally proper
manner based on facts, we propose that the relevant Trial
Chambers should approve to us, the members of the
following group, to appear, each of us as a representative
of the whole group, before them and present the stands on
issues regarding respect for international law in the given
proceedings:





Professor Kosta Cavoski,L.L.D.

Professor Zagorka Jekic,L.L.D.

Professor Ljubisa Lazarevic

Professor Ratko Markovic,L.L.D.

Professor Zoran Stojanovic,L.L.D.

Professor Djordje Lazin,L.L.D.

Professor Mirjana Stefanovski,L.L.D.

Assistant Professor Aleksandar Jaksic,L.L.D.

Assistant Professor Milan Skulic,L.L.D.

Assistant Professor Branko M.Rakic,L.L.D.

Assistant Professor Sasa Bovan,L.L.D.

Assistant Aleksandar Gajic

Assistant Bojan Milisavljevic


(fine/end)

---


To join or help this struggle, visit:
http://www.sps.org.yu/ (official SPS website)
http://www.belgrade-forum.org/ (forum for the world of equals)
http://www.icdsm.org/ (the international committee to defend
Slobodan Milosevic)

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