Kemal Ademović, deputy speaker of the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina, states that last week he submitted a new appeal to the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina for the constitutionality of the Law on Electronic Identification, Trust Services in Electronic Business and the Electronic Document of the BiH entity RS.
According to his statement, he also requested a temporary measure of immediate suspension of the application of the Law until the final decision of the Constitutional Court is made in order to prevent extremely serious adverse consequences, as he stated. He also sent a letter to the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina (OHR) asking for an immediate response in order to prevent the damage, which according to him was incalculable, in a timely manner.
“There is no reaction from the OHR yet! Just as there is no reaction from pro-Bosnian politics. And the disputed unconstitutional law was published more than 15 days ago in the Official Gazette of the RS (49/2026, dated 6/2/2026). On the scene, we have a silent coup d’état that passes under the radar due to presumably more “important”, daily-political topics. By adopting this law, the BiH entity of the RS repeats the provisions that the Constitutional Court of BiH has already declared unconstitutional in case number U-1/25. This is about work under the exclusive jurisdiction of the State Agency for Identification Documents, Records and Data Exchange (IDDEEA), and not of the entity Agency for Information and Communication Technologies of the RS,” said Ademović, according to a statement from the Public Relations Department of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly, which refers to Ademović’s cabinet.
The Deputy Speaker of the House of Peoples points out that with the new law, they are trying to build a parallel digital identity system in the Republika Srpska entity, which includes electronic wallets, qualified electronic signatures, certificates, registers, supervisory bodies and mechanisms of international connection.
By introducing the “Electronic Wallet for Digital Identity”, the BiH entity RS creates a parallel digital identity instrument that has the same legal function as personal documents at the state level. This kind of parallelism directly threatens the uniformity of the identification system of BiH citizens, which the Constitutional Court has marked as a necessary condition for the functioning of the state, Ademović also warns.
Citizens and business entities could find themselves in a situation where their digital signatures issued in the RS are not recognized at the state level, in the Federation of BiH or in international traffic, which would paralyze the digital economy, he added.
According to Ademović, the provision of Article 23, which allows the entity agency to establish “nodes” for cross-border authentication and is directly connected to the international infrastructure, is particularly dangerous. The Constitutional Court has expressly established that such direct international activity of entities in the field of identification documents is not in accordance with the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
IDDEEA has already warned of the potential jeopardy of the visa-free regime for BiH citizens if the integrity of the unified system of issuing travel documents is violated.
“I would like to remind you that in March 2026, upon my appeal, the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina abolished the provisions that enabled the entity to establish an infrastructure for digital signing and issuing qualified certificates, assessing that this violates the unique system of identification documents in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This new RS law reintroduces precisely these institutes, only under the authority of the Agency for Information and Communication Technologies of the RS instead of the earlier foreseen MoI of the RS. Although the law is formally new, its essence is almost identical to the previously repealed solutions, which consciously bypasses the authority of the highest judicial instance in the country,” according to Kemal Ademović.
The RS entity does not stop with attempts to usurp state competences and create parallel systems. The continuity of these attempts shows that this is an agenda that will not be abandoned.
The institutional barrier to these attacks on the state is the Constitutional Court of BiH as the supreme legal authority in the state. As well as OHR, which in such cases is necessary for a timely reaction. However, this time there is still no reaction from the OHR. As well as the reactions of “pro-Bosnian” politics, the deputy chairman of the House of Peoples also points out.
“Encouraged by the political and institutional silence of both the OHR and the “pro-Bosnian” parties, SNSD cadres are going further, and even dared to prohibit the state agency IDDEEA from processing personal data for the purpose of issuing qualified electronic certificates for electronic signing. This is another confirmation that those who deny the existence and powers of the High Representative do so so that they can broadcast laws that take over the powers of the state. When, after the OHR, they also block the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and that is certain, they can create legal chaos in which no one can stop them institutionally,” he also said.
Whether there is awareness of critical, key state institutions as “red lines” and a minimum of political honesty and determination to protect them or whether the desire for power and political commerce will prevail, time will tell very soon, concluded the Deputy Speaker of the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
