New Proposal for the Placement of the Forensic Prisoners



June 12, 2008 - Council of Ministers of B&H has accepted at today’s session the new proposal of Ministry of Justice of B&H for solving the issue of placement of prisoners who need psychiatric protection. As after long waiting there was no agreement of entities about the issue of ownership and way of functioning of the facility in Sokolac, the Ministry proposed new solutions for adaptation of the facility for placement of forensic patients.  

Namely, next to Psychiatric Clinic “Podromanija” in Sokolac there is a facility built for forensic prisoners. Although it was built in 1991, the facility has never started to work, and in the course of time it became devastated and practically useless. Government of Switzerland has given the donation for its reconstruction, but realization of donation is stopped due to completely opposing attitudes of entities. Government of the Federation of FB&H is advocating establishing the institution at the state level or sharing the donation, while the Government of Republic of Srpska considers that the facility is the ownership of entity and that state cannot establish institutions for treatment.     

After not achieving an agreement between entities, Ministry of Justice of B&H made the new proposal for solving this issue. It is proposed to attach the facility to Psychiatric Clinic in Sokolac, and to conclude with this Clinic the agreement on the way of realization of donation from the Government of Switzerland. Condition is that entities conclude the agreement on identical conditions of placement for forensic prisoners from the entire Bosnia and Herzegovina, and that Government of Republic of Srpska guaranties the ending of complete investment.