BHRT will request a review of the judgment of the Sarajevo court under which it is required to pay RTRS around 17 million KM over disputed marketing revenues and the use of fixed radio links. The ruling has led to the blocking of BHRT’s account, despite a separate judgment determining that RTRS owes BHRT a significant amount of money.
According to the Sarajevo court judgment, BHRT owes RTRS 2,018,727.85 KM in marketing revenues for a four-year period.
The ruling also concerns approximately 7.3 million KM in principal, plus interest, related to the use of fixed radio connections. BHRT disputes this obligation, pointing out that both public broadcasters used the connections free of charge under a 2012 mutual protocol.
During the same period, BHRT provided RTRS with identical services worth 33.2 million KM. However, respecting the agreement on free use, BHRT never invoiced RTRS for those services.
Although RTRS’s claims were rejected during the first-instance proceedings, the situation changed following an appeal.
“After the appeal, the court determined that BHRT is obliged to pay the funds for the landline connections used by both broadcasters, and if we look at the law, BHRT has the right to that compensation. The second part of the judgment is for marketing, but it should be emphasized that RTRS did not pay the funds from marketing either. The judgment sounds quite strange, but we will not comment on this judgment. We will ask for a review and, if necessary, we will also go to the Constitutional Court, because we think that we are very damaged by the judgment,” said Belmin Karamehmedović, acting director of BHRT.
When the obligations from the two judgments are compared, the figures are significant. Under the Sarajevo judgment, BHRT must pay RTRS around 17 million KM, while under a 2017 judgment of the court in Banja Luka, RTRS must pay BHRT 15.6 million KM.
These are only some of the court proceedings between the two public broadcasters, with additional cases either ongoing or expected.
Despite several invitations, RTRS management has declined to meet with BHRT representatives, meaning that an agreement between the two broadcasters has not been reached.
Neda Tadić, director of BHT1, said that BHRT has consistently demanded respect for the law and the rights arising from the existing public broadcasting system.
“In recent days, we have been listening to different spins from RTRS colleagues and political representatives of that entity. What BHRT has been asking for all these years is respect for the rights of the current law and nothing else,” Tadić said.
BHRT management also points to another major financial issue, stating that RTRS has accumulated more than 105 million KM in unpaid RTV tax obligations over the past decade.
BHRT says it has warned about the debt for years, but that no lasting solution has been found.
“This is a message for those who come and for the OHR: do what you need to do for the Public Broadcasting System to remain and survive, with its own and entity public services,” said Merima Kurtović Pašalić of the Independent Union of Workers in BHRT.
The dispute has also raised questions about the enforcement of court decisions involving the two public broadcasters.
The court in Banja Luka previously ordered the blocking of RTRS’s account over its debt to BHRT. However, the account was subsequently unblocked without court authorization, after the Government of Republika Srpska stated that it would not allow “one of the pillars of the RS” to collapse.
BHRT now plans to challenge the Sarajevo judgment, arguing that the decision has placed an additional financial burden on the state-level public broadcaster while significant obligations owed by RTRS to BHRT remain unresolved.
