On November 29, representatives of nearly all political institutions in Republika Srpska, as well as representatives of all major Serb-majority parties, signed a statement opposing the BiH Constitutional Court’s recent decision, which held that the celebration of the RS National Day on January 9 is discriminatory to non-Serbs. That decision was written by the Court’s two Bosniak and three foreign judges, over the dissent of the Court’s four Serb and Croat judges. This joint statement represents a very rare moment of consensus between the governing coalition and opposition bloc in RS.
According to the joint statement, the Court’s decision is “an unacceptable act, the aim of which is to deny the legality and legitimacy of the RS,” and is contrary to the principles of the BiH Constitution and Dayton Peace Agreement. As such, according to the RS leaders, the decision cannot legally be implemented.
The statement also points out that the Court’s decision is a result of foreign judges outvoting local ones, “which demonstrates that the Constitutional Court is not autonomous and independent in its work,” and rejects such decisions on principle. The statement calls on the RS National Assembly to produce a report on other instances in which foreign judges have outvoted the majority of local judges.
Most importantly, the leaders call upon the BiH Parliament to vote on a new law governing the Constitutional Court, which would remove all foreign judges and introduce new safeguards ensuring that ethnic blocs of judges could not unfairly issue rulings affecting the rights of other ethnic groups. The statement establishes a four-month deadline for the passage of the new law.
