On the occasion of the current debate on the election of a judge of the Constitutional Court of BiH from BiH entity Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, member of the BiH Presidency Denis Bećirović said that the selection of judges of the Constitutional Court of BiH should not be the subject of political trade between different parties.
“It is time to stop the political practice that was dominantly established in Bosnia and Herzegovina. entity FBiH SDA and HDZ, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina to the RS SNSD entity, according to which party functionaries were elected to the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” says Bećirović.
He reminds that according to Article VI/1. According to the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina consists of nine judges, four of whom are elected by the House of Representatives of the Parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, two members by the National Assembly of the Republika Srpska, while three members are elected by the President of the European Court of Human Rights in consultation with the members of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The basic criteria for the selection of members of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, are that the candidates must be lawyers of high moral standing, which means that representatives of the constituent nations are not elected to the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and especially not candidates determined in advance by any political party in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Herzegovina.
“The procedures carried out so far, in connection with the determination of the list of the most successful candidates for the election of one judge of the Constitutional Court of BiH from Bosnia and Herzegovina. entities of the FBiH, refer to actions that are not in accordance with the basic criteria for the selection of judges of the Constitutional Court of BiH,” Bećirović states.
Namely, it clarifies that, according to information available to the public, the list of the most successful candidates also includes a person for whom the Commission for determining the list of the most successful candidates did not provide adequate evidence from which it could be concluded that the proposed candidate (among more than ten other candidates, among including current judges, professors and doctors of legal sciences, proven legal practitioners and other distinguished lawyers), belongs to the ranks of prominent lawyers of high moral standing.
“On the contrary, in the list of successful candidates, below the first-placed candidate, the Committee of the House of Representatives of the FBiH Parliament ranked numerous other lawyers who, according to the criteria and standards of the legal profession and science, legal practice, and constitutional judicial practice, prima facie, deserved to be better placed from the first place on the list of candidates for judge of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The only reasonable solution based on the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina is to restore independence, expertise and transparency in the process of electing judges of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and consistent compliance with the constitutional criteria of the legal profession and science,” the statement reads.
