Christian Schmidt watches over the peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) – and endures many criticisms. Constitutional law expert Joseph Marko says that Schmidt did not prefer only the HDZ but also the SDA. “Is the Office of the High Representative (OHR) still necessary?” asks the Suddeutsche Zeitung (SZ).
SZ wrote that last Tuesday, there was a protest again in front of the OHR. In the beginning, the German newspaper quotes a demonstrator who says that the OHR “does not work for us, for the people, but for one party”.
Journalist Tobias Zick wrote that Azra Zornic is one of the most prominent representatives of civil society in the country. “She is best known for the fact that an important court decision bears her name. (…) Zornic appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) because she believed that she was discriminated against by the Constitution and the electoral law of her country”. Because only members of one of the three constituent peoples can run for the Presidency.
“Equal rights for all citizens”
The Munich newspaper noted that “what Azra Zornic is asking for is actually very simple and what is understood by European standards: ‘equal rights for all citizens’.” The European Court of Justice agreed with it in 2014, and there are a number of other similar judgments, in which it is concluded that the country needs to change its Constitution, but so far no one has done it.
The text immediately quotes High Representative Christian Schmidt, who says that “Mrs. Zornic is absolutely right”, but that he is not the right address for the protest. “Schmidt, whom SZ met last week in Munich, told this newspaper: ‘I tell the demonstrators again and again: People, 300 meters across the bridge, there is the parliament. There are people there who can change the constitution of BiH. I can not do it.'”
OHR is a “dead horse”
Moreover, SZ indicated that one of Schmidt’s predecessors called the function of the High Representative, which according to the Dayton Agreement was supposed to be a provisional solution, a ‘dead horse’. “But since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a new dynamic is at work: the United States (U.S.) and the European Union (EU) are increasingly trying to suppress Moscow’s influence in the region, which is present, for example, through the separatist Bosnian Serbs. So suddenly, the High Representative is playing an active role again. But is it a constructive role?,” the SZ asks.
“If he is interfering with the Constitution of one of the two constituent entities, why not immediately abolish the principle of ethnic division? “I cannot do that because I would first have to change the Constitution of the entire state of BiH,” says Schmidt. “That would only work as part of some new Dayton Conference, which I don’t think is possible, or as part of a parliamentary legislative procedure in the state legislature.”
Is Schmidt a non-partisan arbitrator?
Joseph Marko, professor of law at the University of Graz, who was one of the three international judges in the Constitutional Court of BiH from 1997 to 2002 and who is a renowned expert on the complicated constitution of BiH, told SZ; “It is true. The High Representative can change almost everything, except for the text of the Dayton Constitution. However, Schmidt could have made additional changes when he already intervened in the Entity Constitution of the Federation of BiH (FBiH), in order to reduce ethnic discrimination, at least in this part of the country. That would be an important political signal,” says Marko.
How to get a new constitution?
The question remains: how can the country draft a new Constitution, which overcomes the principle of ethnic division – and in the end make the High Representative redundant? “Schmidt could try to gather party leaders by advocating the reform of the Dayton constitution,” says Joseph Marko for SZ and adds that in the current situation, in which “especially Milorad Dodik (SNSD) is completely against it, there is no chance for that”. SZ recalls that Dodik has been threatening for years, with the support of Moscow, to hold a referendum on the secession of Republika Srpska (RS). “On Wednesday, Schmidt told the United Nations (UN) Security Council that the secessionist rhetoric of the leadership there has recently ‘increased dramatically’.”
In the end, the paper once again quotes Azra Zornic who says: “Because of people like Dodik, we still need a High Representative.”, DW reports.
E.Dz.
