The ability of a political and social community to administer justice in accordance with laws adopted through democratic processes, ensuring equality before the law and effective access to an impartial court, that is access to justice, is one of the fundamental elements of modern civilization and the most important mechanism for the protection of human rights and civil liberties. Although the Croatian judiciary has progressed in several areas since the early 1990s, it still lacks sufficient independence from political pressure and bias, prosecuting institutions are not proactive enough in pursuing criminal responsibility for war crimes, and the general public lacks awareness of the mechanisms of transitional justice that are essential in helping society overcome issues stemming from a period of intense and widespread human rights violations. Therefore, in this strategic period, the Initiative will focus on several programmatic elements aimed at contributing to the realization and strengthening of the rule of law:
Human Rights and Transitional Justice Academy — To enhance the capacity of young people from diverse fields of interest and engagement to contribute to the promotion and protection of human rights and civil liberties, the Initiative will establish the Human Rights and Transitional Justice Academy, in cooperation with the Human Rights House. This will be a comprehensive hybrid educational program held annually, where prominent experts from Croatia and abroad will present on a wide range of topics related to human rights and transitional justice, incorporating multidisciplinary perspectives and practical exercises through which participants will gain relevant and applicable knowledge. In developing this program, the Initiative will integrate lessons learned from more than 15 years of implementing educational programs on human rights and transitional justice. To ensure the program’s relevance and applicability, it will include legal scholars, political scientists, philosophers, sociologists, historians, practitioners in human rights and transitional justice, engaged artists, activists, lawyers, and others. Additionally, to make the program more appealing to youth, the Initiative will seek to accredit it in collaboration with educational institutions in Croatia and abroad during this strategic period.
Legal Research and Advocacy — To address the problem of insufficient proactivity among judicial prosecutorial bodies in the Republic of Croatia, the Initiative will once again conduct legal research and file criminal complaints for unprosecuted crimes from the 1990s. The Initiative has previously conducted significant research in this area, such as investigations into crimes committed against Serbs in Vukovar in the summer of 1991, before the JNA aggression on the city, or into the torture of war prisoners and civilians after Operation “Flash” in 1995. In addition to crimes committed by Croatian forces or forces under the control of the Republic of Croatia in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the actions of prosecutorial institutions have been suboptimal, crimes committed in the occupied territories of the Republic of Croatia (during the control of the unrecognized so-called Republic of Serbian Krajina) have also been insufficiently investigated, and their victims or victims’ families have often not received access to justice. In its legal research work, the Initiative will focus particularly on these crimes that have been inadequately addressed by judicial institutions or where the processes (from pre-investigation to trial) are subject to political pressure and bias. These legal investigations will also form the basis for advocating the independence and impartiality of the judiciary in the Republic of Croatia.
Legacy of Justice — Since its founding, the Initiative has collaborated with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and has continued this cooperation with the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT). From 2012 onward, the Initiative had a Memorandum of Understanding with the ICTY Outreach Program, through which it promoted information about the tribunal’s work to high school students in Croatia. In this strategic period, the Initiative will again work with the IRMCT to contribute to a better public understanding of the ICTY/IRMCT’s contribution and to ensure the legacy of its work is better preserved, and that the established facts and legal findings achieve greater presence in public discourse in Croatia. The Initiative will promote the legacy of these international institutions by incorporating the results of their work into the Human Rights and Transitional Justice Academy, the Museum of Remembrance for Civilian Victims of War, and by continuing to research crimes that the ICTY pointed to but Croatian institutions have not adequately addressed to date.