Enemy of Justice? Secrecy in Domestic War Crimes Trials in Serbia

Secrecy is one of the devices courts employ to ensure trials can be held effectively, and this is especially true of war crimes cases. But secrecy is also in tension with the commitment to public trials, and with the aspiration that trials will contribute to post-conflict reconciliation. Secrecy is commonly used in automatic, bureaucratic ways. However, it can also be employed strategically, and judiciaries in transitional post-conflict contexts may be particularly vulnerable to uses and abuses of secrecy. Relying on theories of criminal law’s narrative impact on post-conflict reconciliation and focusing on the case of Serbia, we study how secrecy is actually deployed in domestic war crime trials. Using original data from 164 trial judgements from 1999 to 2019 and applying computerized techniques for optical recognition of redactions, combined with an original human-coded data set of individual-level characteristics of defendants, victims, crimes, and the cases, we scrutinize when secrecy is used in judgments. The study will contribute to a better understanding of the conditions necessary for secrecy to have a peace-promoting impact.