Yesterday, the Trial Chamber in the Karadžić case ordered the suspension of proceedings for a period of one month due to the violations by the Prosecution of its disclosure obligations.
The Trial Chamber, during the course of the hearing, ordered the suspension to allow the accused and his team to review around 14,000 pages of material containing potentially exculpatory information, disclosed to him by the Prosecution at the end of October 2010.
According to the presiding judge, “the sheer volume of this material is such that it is in the interest of justice to suspend the proceedings temporarily.”
In determining the period of suspension, the Chamber also took into consideration the significant number of violations by the Prosecution of its obligations to disclose documents to the accused, which have been recorded by the Chamber in several previous decisions.
The presiding judge stated that the Chamber was increasingly troubled by the potential cumulative effect of late disclosure on the overall fairness of the trial.
He urged the Office of the Prosecutor to take seriously its disclosure obligations and ensure that all necessary resources are dedicated to ensuring timely disclosure of material to the accused.
The day before, on 2 October, the Chamber, having considered disclosure violations by the Prosecution, ordered that none of the witnesses affected by the recent untimely disclosure of their statements may be called to testify before 31 January 2011.
Previously, in September 2010, the Chamber had suspended the trial for a period of one week to allow the accused and his team to review a large volume of potentially exculpatory material.
See also previous post: "Karadzic case: Prosecution disclosure errors".