Lawmakers In Bosnian Serb Entity Vote To Quit Constitutional Court

The parliament of Republika Srpska has voted to quit the ethnic Serbian entity's participation in the Constitutional Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina amid an ongoing dispute with the central government and the representatives of the international community over property rights.

The measure was adopted by the National Assembly of Republic of Srpska on April 26 with 47 votes out of the 68 deputies present. The legislature has a total of 83 seats.

Republika Srpska, the ethnic Serbian entity that along with the Bosniak-Croat Federation makes up the Bosnian state, has tried multiple times to implement a property law that would allow it to transfer state property under its jurisdiction.

Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik has been trying to separate the entity's military, police, and tax administration from the central Bosnian government, actions that contravene the Dayton accords that ended the 1992-1993 Bosnian War.

Dodik -- who has been hit by sanctions by the United States and Britain over alleged destabilization efforts and corruption -- has argued that the property law aims to ensure that assets located on its territory including local governments, public companies, public institutions, and other departments belong to the Serbian entity.

But Bosnia's Constitutional Court has stated that the national parliament must adopt a property law that would be valid across Bosnia and not only in one of the country’s two entities.

Under the Dayton accords that ended the 1992-1995 Bosnian War, an administrative system was established under which the Bosnian state remains partitioned between Republika Srpska and the Muslim Bosniak-Croat Federation, connected by a weak central government.

The constitution of Bosnia forged in the Dayton accords provides for a nine-member Constitutional Court.

Four members are elected by the parliament of the Bosniak-Croat Federation and two are named by Republika Srpska legislature, while the remaining three are elected by the president of the European Court for Human Rights in consultation with the central tripartite presidency of Bosnia.

Those three judges cannot be Bosnian citizens or nationals of any of Bosnia's neighboring countries.

Ethnic Serb legislators have justified their move to withdraw from the Constitutional Court by saying the body has been making "anti-Dayton" and "anticonstitutional" decisions.

The April 27 vote appears to be the latest in a series of moves meant to destabilize the central Bosnian state after Dodik, who leads the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, the largest party in the assembly, repeatedly threatened to push for the independence of Republika Srpska unless the dispute over the country's assets is resolved in the Serb entity's favor.

Withdrawing the ethnic Serb judges would still allow the remaining members of the court to make decisions.

However, Republika Srpska's prime minister, Radovan Viskovic, told the parliamentary debate ahead of the vote that the court will lose its "legality and legitimacy" following the Serb withdrawal.

Currently, there is only one ethnic Serb member of the court, Zlatko Knezevic, after the mandate of Miodrag Simovic expired in November when he turned 70 and the parliament has yet to choose a replacement.