Case No.: IT-02-54-T

IN THE TRIAL CHAMBER

Before:
Judge Richard May, Presiding
Judge Patrick Robinson
Judge O-Gon Kwon

Registrar:
Mr. Hans Holthuis

Decision of:
26 August 2003

PROSECUTOR

v.

SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC

_________________________________________________

DECISION TO LIFT THE CONFIDENTIAL STATUS OF THE PLEA AGREEMENT IN THE ERDEMOVIC CASE

__________________________________________________

The Office of the Prosecutor

Ms. Carla Del Ponte
Mr. Geoffrey Nice
Mr. Dermot Groome

The Accused

Slobodan Milosevic

Amici Curiae

Mr. Steven Kay, QC
Mr. Branislav Tapuskovic
Mr. Timothy L.H. McCormack

 

THIS TRIAL CHAMBER of the International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991 ("International Tribunal"),

NOTING that the plea agreement in the matter of Prosecutor v. Drazen Erdemovic, attached as Annexure A to the "Joint Motion for Consideration of Plea Agreement between Dražen Erdemović and the Office of the Prosecutor" ("plea agreement" and "joint motion"), was filed on 9 January 1998 under seal and that the confidential status of this document has not been lifted,

NOTING that the plea agreement was exhibited under seal in the Prosecutor v. Milosevic proceedings as Prosecution Exhibit 514, tab 24 on 25 August 2003,

NOTING that Rule 62 ter (C), created after the filing of the plea agreement, states that the Trial Chamber shall require the disclosure of plea agreements in open session unless good cause is shown, and that it has been the practice of Trial Chambers to release plea agreements publicly after the guilty plea hearing,

CONSIDERING that whilst no Rule in the Rules of Procedure and Evidence of the International Tribunal ("Rules") deals explicitly with the lifting of confidentiality on documents exhibited in this manner, Rule 54 empowers a Trial Chamber to make such orders as are necessary for the conduct of the trial,

CONSIDERING FURTHER that an analogous procedure exists with respect to the variation of protective measures granted to witnesses under Rule 75 of the Rules, pursuant to which where no Chamber remains seised of the first proceedings in which protective measures orders are made, the Chamber seised of the second proceedings has the power to vary such orders, and that it is appropriate that such a procedure be followed mutatis mutandis with respect to protected documents such as the plea agreement,

CONSIDERING that it is in the interests of justice that the confidentiality of the plea agreement be lifted,

PURSUANT TO Rule 54 of the Rules,

HEREBY ORDERS that the confidential status of the plea agreement is hereby lifted.

 

Done in English and French, the English text being authoritative.

______________
Richard May
Presiding

Dated this twenty-sixth day of August 2003
At The Hague
The Netherlands

[Seal of the Tribunal]