Bosnia: Fraud Prevention Unit examines court records

UNCLAS SARAJEVO 000988

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR CA/EX, CA/FPP, CA/VO, AND EUR/SCE (MIKE FOOKS); DEPT ALSO
PASS TO KCC; POSTS FOR FRAUD PREVENTION MANAGERS; VIENNA FOR DHS
MARLA BELVEDERE

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KFRD CVIS CMGT CPAS ASEC BK
SUBJECT: Bosnia: Fraud Prevention Unit examines court records

REF: Sarajevo 975


1. Summary. This cable is the second of three cables concerning
documents that support immigrant visa applications, in this case
focusing on court records from both entities. The case management
system is not being properly used by regional court authorities and
efforts need to be made to ensure that immigrant visa applicant
records reflect the entire territory of Bosnia. Furthermore, online
records of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina need to be checked to
ensure that cases that include terrorism, war crimes and organized
crime are also identified. End summary.


2. The Fraud Prevention Unit (FPU) recently contacted the
representatives of several regional courts in Bosnia in connection
with Bosnian court documents. FPU wanted to become more familiar
with the current standards applied by different court offices in
Bosnia. We established that the regional court records reflect only
criminal-related cases for a single region. They are not
nationwide, and apply only to very limited court matters.


3. Bosnian regional court documents are issued exclusively for
criminal law cases based on residence in one of 15 Bosnian regions.
They include only criminal cases where the court has confirmed the
individual's indictment. The criminal cases from one region would
not appear in the court records of the other 14 regions. Therefore,
Bosnian regional court certificates do not inlude any cases from
any other regional court of he same or higher judicial level.


4. Misdemeanrs, civil suits or property and custody disputes do
not appear in regional Bosnian court certificatins. Some of these
actions may be relevant in animmigrant visa case, yet a consular
officer reviewing the application may not obtain this information
from the regular Bosnian court documents.


5. Cases involving terrorism, organized crime and war crimes fall
under the jurisdiction of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This
court is a completely separate legal body, and has exclusive
jurisdiction for terrorism, war crimes, and organized crime. Their
cases would not normally be reflected in the court document from the
applicant's region of residence.


6. Our contact at the Sarajevo Cantonal Court stated that there is
no established electronic/computer network among different Bosnian
courts, so they unable to know about active cases from other
regional Bosnian courts. However, one of the court employees told
us informally that such a system exists, but the local bureaucracy
ignores this resource. Indeed, in a recent FPU visit to the
regional court in East Sarajevo (Republika Srpska),FPU learned that
such a system does exist: the Case Management Statistics system
(CMS). The system became operational in East Sarajevo in spring

2008. Starting in 2006, the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council
of Bosnia introduced a new CMS database that permits access to all
active municipal and regional court cases in Bosnia. We were told
that the project was completed by the end of 2008, but that the
regional Bosnian courts did nothing to change their procedures with
Court documents.


7. Post will now require that the regional courts run the entire
CMS database for all U.S. immigration-related cases, thus providing
us with a complete criminal record that would cover all Bosnia.
Additionally, FPU plans on running the online records of the Court
of Bosnia and Herzegovina for every IV applicant in order to verify
whether there are any records that present ineligibilities relating
to terrorism, war crimes, or organized crime.

MOORE