The combative leader of Bosnia-Herzegovina's Serb-majority entity announced on June 30 that he'd filed a criminal complaint against himself and a handful of other senior officials, including a member of the country's ethnically based presidency, in the secession-minded Serb's latest challenge to central authority in the beleaguered Balkan state.
Milorad Dodik, president of the Republika Srpska entity that makes up half of Bosnia, also said he'd filed a complaint against the speaker of the Bosnian parliament and dozens of lawmakers over legislation governing official powers.
Dodik's move is part of a years-long resistance to Bosnia's central authorities and is part of a showdown over a vote by Republika Srpska's assembly to suspend recognition of rulings by Bosnia's Constitutional Court.
The assembly's vote on June 27 was another in a series of steps orchestrated by Dodik and his Bosnian Serb allies to reject the power-sharing structures established for Bosnia in a peace deal to end a brutal three-year war following the breakup of Yugoslavia.
The so-called Dayton agreements in 1995 divided governmental, administrative, and other functions up along ethnic lines between majority Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats.
The bill backed by the lower house of Republika Srpska's parliament still would require upper-house and entity-level presidential approval.
If it got such support, it could come into effect as soon as August in a serious blow to Bosnia's unified checks on centrifugal impulses.
The international community's high representative in Bosnia, German Christian Schmidt, could also annul the legislation under his UN-backed authority to ensure the functioning of Bosnia's civilian institutions.
The Constitutional Court could also strike it down once it is in force, but Dodik and his allies would almost certainly challenge its authority.
SEE ALSO: OHR Calls New Laws Passed By Republika Srpska Illegal, Unacceptable, And Blames DodikDodik has led an increasingly inflammatory campaign for years to encourage support for his secessionist hopes from neighboring Serbia and from Russia.
Germany's Foreign Ministry said on June 30 that the Republika Srpska assembly's latest move to ignore Constitutional Court decisions "violated the letter and spirit of the country's constitution and with them the 1995 Dayton peace accords."
Ministry spokesman Christofer Burger warned that the vote was a "further serious step toward detachment from identification with the state as a whole" and said it "threatens the unity and territorial integrity of the country."
He also said it endangered the candidate status that the European Union granted Bosnia in December and "is contrary to the wishes and interests of all citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina."
Dodik has filed legal attacks on himself before to try to deliver broader political messages. Eight years ago, he filed a criminal complaint against himself to mock opposition accusations of corruption against him.
In 2017, his son Igor filed a criminal complaint against himself as an alleged "accomplice" to his father in organizing banned Republika Srpska Day events.