Support for Bosnia and Herzegovina in implementing criminal and prison reform in the next 30 months will be provided through a new project entitled “Harmonisation of BiH sanction policies and practices with European standards” whose official beginning was marked on 12 February in Sarajevo. The project is the result of a partnership between the EU and Council of Europe which has been established in an effort to promote alternative criminal sanctions and support vulnerable groups of prisoners.

“The EU worked really hard to help BiH  make its justice sector  more effective and more efficient. We are working really hard to achieve safe and more secure society. We also want to ensure that prisoners are adequately treated and that their rights are respected. These issues have been brought up through the Structured Dialogue, as well as through a few EU funded projects that have developed some positive momentum over the past couple years. We hope that  this project will contribute to the further development of this area” said Severin Strohal, Head of the Operations Section for Justice and Home Affairs and Public Administration Reform of the Delegation of the European Union to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The project focuses on  significant issues for the future execution of criminal sanctions system in BiH, such as alternative criminal sanctions, probation system, treatment of high-risk individuals and training of the prison staff.

“It is a great pleasure that we started this project today, and above all continued our long-standing successful cooperation between the Council of Europe and the EU, in order to harmonize the BiH practices with European standards. Considering that the previous projects in this field tried to provide  local ownership of the project results that are sustainable and applicable in practice right now, we are sure that the same thing will be with this project because it involves local experts who certainly have the support of international colleagues” said Tanja Rakusic Hadzic, Head of the Criminal Law Cooperation Unit in Council of Europe, Strasbourg.

The total project budget is 1 320 000 EUR, out of which 90% is funded by the European Union and 10% by the Council of Europe.