Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 29

1 Tuesday, 19 July 2005

2 [Status Conference]

3 [Open session]

4 [The appellant entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 2.15 p.m.

6 JUDGE GUNEY: [Interpretation] Please sit down.

7 Good afternoon. Mr. Registrar, could you call the case number,

8 please.

9 THE REGISTRAR: Good afternoon, Your Honours. This is case

10 number IT-02-60/1-A, the Prosecutor versus Momir Nikolic. Thank you.

11 JUDGE GUNEY: [Interpretation] Thank you.

12 Mr. Nikolic, can you hear the proceedings and understand them?

13 THE APPELLANT: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour.

14 JUDGE GUNEY: [Interpretation] Thank you. You may sit down.

15 THE APPELLANT: [Interpretation] Thank you.

16 JUDGE GUNEY: [Interpretation] Could we have the appearances,

17 please. Let's start with the Prosecution.

18 MR. FARRELL: Good afternoon, Your Honour. Appearing for the

19 Prosecution is myself, Norman Farrell, and with me is appeals counsel, Mr.

20 Marcussen and Ms. Kind. Our case manager is Ms. Galicia. Thank you.

21 JUDGE GUNEY: Thank you.

22 JUDGE GUNEY: [Interpretation]

23 MR. TANSEY: Your Honour, good afternoon. Appearing for Mr.

24 Nikolic, my name is Rock Tansey, and Mr. Livingston is my co-counsel.

25 JUDGE GUNEY: Thank you very much.

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1 [Interpretation] Pursuant to Rule 65 bis of the Rules of

2 Procedure and Evidence, a Status Conference shall be convened within 120

3 days after the Notice of Appeal was filed and then within 120 days after

4 the last Status Conference in order to allow everyone to raise issues that

5 concern the appeals procedure.

6 This is the fifth Status Conference in relation to the appeal

7 filed by Mr. Nikolic. Mr. Nikolic or his counsel, would you like to raise

8 any issues that concern the detention conditions or your mental or physical

9 health?

10 MR. TANSEY: Your Honour, we have no observations to make.

11 Thank you.

12 JUDGE GUNEY: Thank you.

13 [Interpretation] As far as how the appeals procedure is

14 progressing is concerned, the purpose of this Status Conference is to

15 examine how the case is proceeding. This case has been affected by the

16 withdrawal of two of the lead counsels and by the recent appointment of co-

17 counsel, Mr. Livingston, who is assisting Mr. Tansey.

18 Since the beginning of the appeals proceedings, we have run into

19 a certain number of difficulties that have considerably delayed the appeal

20 proceedings. In the light of these most recent events, I am certain that

21 the parties will now be in a position to fully focus on Mr. Nikolic's

22 appeal.

23 The Appeals Chamber has ruled on the most recent motions filed

24 by the Defence. The motions concerned are the following ones: The request

25 to withdraw motions to admit additional evidence and the motion to amend

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1 the Notice of Appeal filed on the 6th of June, 2005, which also contains a

2 request to file a revised appellant's brief.

3 Secondly, we have the motion to amend the Notice of Appeal that

4 was filed on the 29th of June, 2005.

5 The Appeals Chamber has decided to grant the three motions filed

6 by Mr. Nikolic and hereby authorises the following: Firstly, the

7 withdrawal of the two motions that were filed on the 23rd of December,

8 2004. Secondly, the filing of the appellant's brief, the purpose of which

9 is to clarify the current brief. Thirdly, the filing of a new Notice of

10 Appeal in which the erroneous references under paragraph 1(b) will be

11 replaced by the correct ones.

12 The following deadline has been established for the filing of

13 the new written submissions: Mr. Nikolic will have to file his new Notice

14 of Appeal by Friday, the 22nd of July, 2005, at the latest. The revised

15 appellant's brief should be filed by Monday, the 8th of August, 2005, at

16 the latest. If necessary, an amended respondent's brief may be filed by

17 the Prosecution no later than Friday, the 26th of August, 2005. A brief in

18 reply, a revised brief in reply, may also be filed by Monday, the 5th of

19 September, 2005, at the latest.

20 I would like to invite the parties to take advantage of the

21 filings of these revised written submissions in order to include all

22 necessary corrections in their briefs.

23 At this point in time, I would also like to invite the parties

24 to fully respect the schedule established. A written decision concerning

25 this disposition as well as the motives of the Appeals Chamber will now be

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1 handed out to you by the registrar, and I thank him in advance for his

2 assistance.

3 As far as I am concerned, I have no other comments to make at

4 this Status Conference. Do the parties have any comments they would like

5 to make or any issues they would like to raise?

6 Mr. Tansey.

7 MR. TANSEY: Your Honour, it purely relates to the third order

8 that you've made for, if need be, a revised brief in reply shall be filed

9 no later than Monday, the 5th of September, 2005.

10 The position is that I, in fact, will -- will be away on

11 vacation until the end of August, so it may be that the 5th of September is

12 possibly too swift for a reply. If I was to ask for, for example, the 12th

13 of September, which is giving an extra week, I would hope that that should

14 be sufficient.

15 Regarding the other matters, we have no observation to make.

16 JUDGE GUNEY: [Interpretation] Thank you. You may sit down.

17 [Appeal Chamber and legal officer confer]

18 JUDGE GUNEY: [Interpretation] Thank you.

19 Mr. Tansey, this is the Appeals Chamber decision, naturally, and

20 the Pre-Trial Judge or the Pre-Appeal Judge cannot change this.

21 Secondly, I think that the Appeals Chamber has already taken

22 into consideration certain factors that have delayed the proceedings and, I

23 noted it before, fixing this deadline.

24 Mr. Tansey, with the assistance of Mr. Livingston - and I do

25 apologise - you could perhaps reach an agreement and try to respect the

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1 deadline that has already been set.

2 MR. TANSEY: Your Honour, may I say, certainly, we shall seek to

3 honour the deadline. It's effectively that having agreed or drafted the

4 document, we then have to get it translated for Mr. Nikolic, and -- and

5 that adds to the delay. And that's why -- the only reason why, we suggest,

6 that if we had the extra week, it may enable us to deal with all the

7 matters in question. That's why we suggest, as well, if it could be

8 changed to the 12th of September.

9 Your Honour, I have nothing else to add to that.

10 [Appeal Chamber and legal officer confer]

11 MR. FARRELL: Excuse me, Your Honour.

12 JUDGE GUNEY: Yes.

13 MR. FARRELL: I apologise for interrupting, if you're about to

14 address Mr. Tansey.

15 The scheduling does affect the Prosecution, so I wanted to just

16 inform you that I had a few comments on the scheduling before you addressed

17 Mr. Tansey, as your answer may be the same for -- for both of us, which is

18 that if it's the full Appeals Chamber that has to decide it, I was going to

19 -- well, I can wait till Your Honour responds to Mr. Tansey or indicate the

20 Prosecution's position, as you wish.

21 If you'd like me to proceed with comments in that regard, I can.

22 JUDGE GUNEY: [Interpretation] Well, would you like me to wait

23 until I've answered the Defence counsel first.

24 MR. FARRELL: Thank you.

25 JUDGE GUNEY: [Interpretation] Mr. Tansey, I think you could seek

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1 to honour the deadline and, if need be, you could apply for a change with

2 the Appeals Chamber, and we'll see what we can do. [In English] Let's do

3 it like this.

4 MR. TANSEY: Yes. Well, I'm happy to do that. It's just, I

5 thought, possibly avoid an unnecessary application.

6 JUDGE GUNEY: Okay.

7 MR. TANSEY: Thank you.

8 JUDGE GUNEY: Mr. Farrell.

9 MR. FARRELL: Merci. Thank you.

10 In light of your suggestion, I was going to simply indicate that

11 if and when we -- when we receive the revised appellate's brief, if there

12 is any difficulty in filing our brief in 15 working days, we will simply

13 inform the Court and set out a request, if necessary. If not, we will try

14 and comply with the order. The only difficulty the Prosecution faces is,

15 in the same period of time we have the Brdjanin brief, the Blagojevic

16 brief. It's the summer recess, and we had maybe erroneously anticipated

17 that we would have 40 days to file a response brief, as the appellant has

18 had almost 70. So we were going under the original Rules. And since this

19 matter was scheduled, I didn't anticipate the necessity of doing this so

20 expeditiously. But I take Your Honour's comments. We will receive the

21 brief, take a look at it when we receive it, and try and comply with the

22 order.

23 Thank you.

24 [Appeal Chamber and legal officer confer]

25 JUDGE GUNEY: [Interpretation] Since the Appeals Chamber has

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1 taken into account the fact that there were many delays, I believe we're

2 going to maintain things as they are. And if the need arises in the

3 future, you will file an application and we shall decide accordingly.

4 Do you have any other questions?

5 MR. FARRELL: No. Thank you, Your Honour.

6 JUDGE GUNEY: Thank you.

7 MR. TANSEY: No, thank you, Your Honour. Thank you.

8 JUDGE GUNEY: [Interpretation] Well, since there are no

9 questions, the Status Conference is adjourned. It is so decided.

10 --- Whereupon the Status Conference adjourned at

11 2.34 p.m.

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