The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina handles the country’s most sensitive cases, including terrorism, atrocity crimes, and organised crime. It is also notably open. While many judicial systems restrict audiovisual access, this Court permits requests for trial recordings, as long as the hearings were public.

The procedure is direct. To attend a hearing, a researcher, journalist, or citizen must check the daily schedule and submit an entry request to the Public Information Office by 9:00 AM; a valid ID or passport is required. To obtain audiovisual recordings, a formal ZP-1 Information Access Request must be submitted via email or at the court registry. Once approved, the requester provides a blank DVD-R for transfer.

The process is conditional but not obstructive. I have submitted dozens of such requests. Each time, I filled out the form, cited the case number and hearing date, and waited. Approval typically came within days. I received hours of raw courtroom footage, unedited and unfiltered (Buljubašić & Azinović, 2023).

For researchers, this access is a gift. It supports diverse forms of research. It reveals how justice is enacted through posture and performance. Yet this access is not complete.

This window has its frames. While the courtrooms are equipped with multiple HD cameras, the final recording is often restricted to a “speaker-only” perspective. The digital system triggers camera presets based on the active microphone, meaning the feed follows the active speaker. This can obscure broader spatial interactions, such as silent reactions or subtle gestures, limiting researchers to individual performances rather than a continuous courtroom view.

But access also creates new challenges when recordings circulate beyond the courtroom.

The Ethics of Transparency

Courtroom recordings are intended to inform. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, however, they often take on a second life that reveals more about the public than the proceedings.

In high-profile cases involving politicians or alleged terrorists, courtroom video can become a tool for manipulation. Consider the trials of Fadil Novalić, former Prime Minister of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, or Milorad Dodik, President of Republika Srpska. Clips from their hearings circulated online but were rarely viewed in full. Commentators twisted the footage to fit partisan agendas, accusing judges of bias or framing trials as politically driven.

The footage became evidence, not of what was said, but of what people were encouraged to believe.

Judges were forced to defend their integrity publicly. Some reminded viewers that judicial misconduct is subject to investigation. Others chose silence, aware that transparency itself was being turned against them. What once invited public trust now invited public attack.

This is not unprecedented. The trial of Zijad Turković—a convicted organized crime figure—was filmed and uploaded to YouTube. He became infamous, a criminal whose courtroom presence extended beyond the trial itself into public fascination. A prison officer once told me that a young inmate had arrived asking to meet Turković, whom he had watched obsessively online. To him, Turković wasn’t a cautionary tale. He was a legend. For researchers, this reinforces the ethical obligation to interpret courtroom footage carefully, ensuring that analysis provides context rather than contributing to distortion.

Watching Justice or Consuming Spectacle?

The Court’s openness is a strength. Justice is made visible, traceable, and open to review.

But what happens when that visibility is distorted? When serious trials are recast as entertainment? When clicks and shares override facts and consequences? As Lisa Flower (2023) reminds us, the digital reporting of criminal trials often involves a process of emotionalisation, where legal proceedings are reframed into clickable narratives that prioritize sensationalism.

Bosnia’s linguistic politics add another layer to this construction of clickability. Court hearings are conducted in local languages. For non-speakers, or even for those unfamiliar with the region’s political and legal culture, courtroom video can mislead. Tone may be misread. Language can carry unintended signals. Silence might look like guilt. Due process may appear theatrical.

These recordings require interpretation. Without context, they risk becoming soundbites, stripped of meaning.

Towards Responsible Access

Courtroom video should remain accessible. To restrict it would invite more suspicion, not less. But transparency demands care—by researchers, media, and the public.

For scholars, this means following ethical protocols. Videos must not be edited for sensational effect. They must be situated, interpreted, and protected. To date, there is no documented evidence in Bosnia and Herzegovina of systematic misuse of courtroom recordings by academic researchers. This may reflect the relatively small number of scholars working directly with audiovisual judicial materials and the professional norms governing scholarly conduct.

For journalists, the same holds. Access is not an excuse for distortion. It comes with a duty to inform, not to provoke.

These tensions are not theoretical. Institutional actors in Bosnia and Herzegovina have already confronted conflicts between transparency and privacy. Following complaints about personal data in indictments, the Personal Data Protection Agency instructed judicial institutions to limit disclosure, resulting in anonymisation and withdrawal of indictments from public websites (Džumhur, 2026).

A recent assessment found that requests for audiovisual materials are among those most frequently rejected by courts and prosecutor’s offices, showing that institutions treat footage as more sensitive than written records (Transparency International in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2025). In this context, measures such as limiting audiovisual access, delaying release, or imposing stricter procedural conditions are sometimes presented as ways to reduce privacy risks and prevent misuse, even if they also limit the interpretive depth and evidentiary richness of audiovisual material.

Even in systems without live broadcasting, such as Bosnia, research shows that expanded courtroom visibility can shape how legal professionals communicate beyond the courtroom (Flower & Ahlefeldt, 2021). In a joint initiative to reform access to information laws, civil society organisations called for proactive transparency, narrow exceptions, and mandatory public interest tests, emphasising that judicial information should be more accessible, not less, in order to strengthen accountability and public trust (BH Journalists Association, 2021).

The debate is less about whether transparency carries risks and more about how those risks should be managed.

Access, I have learned, is not just about permission to see. It is about the responsibility to see wisely, recognising that transparency alone does not guarantee understanding without careful interpretation.

References

BH Journalists Association. (2021, February 9). CSO’s requested amendments to the law on freedom of access to information. https://bhnovinari.ba/en/2021/02/09/csos-requested-amendments-to-the-law-on-freedom-of-access-to-information/

Buljubašić, M., & Azinović, V. (2023). Criminal Prosecutions of Foreign Terrorist Fighters in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Sarajevo: Atlantic Initiative.

Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. (n.d.). Request for Audio/Video Recording. https://www.sudbih.gov.ba/Contact/Form/zahtjev-za-audio-video-zapis

Džumhur, J. (2026). Colliding Effects of Freedom of Access to Information and Personal Data Protection. Centar za društvena istraživanja, 2(1), 157-173.

Flower, L. (2023). Constructing clickable criminal trials: Framing trials and legal professionals in digital news reports. Emotions and Society, 5(1), 48-66.

Flower, L., & Ahlefeldt, M. S. (2021). The criminal trial as a live event, Exploring how and why live blogs change the professional practices of judges, defence lawyers and prosecutors. Media, Culture and Society, 43(8), 1480-1496.

Transparency International in Bosnia and Herzegovina. (2025, April 23). BH judiciary increasingly closed to the public: Courts and prosecutor’s offices selectively share information, ignore citizens and media. https://ti-bih.org/bh-judiciary-increasingly-closed-to-the-public-courts-and-prosecutors-offices-selectively-share-information-ignore-citizens-and-media/