The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina decided that the provisions of the Law on Citizenship of BiH are in accordance with the state constitution, thus rejecting the appeal of Denis Zvizdić, in which he claimed that the law prescribes a “very difficult, restrictive and discriminatory relationship” towards those who would like to return their native citizenship.
The Constitutional Court indicated that each country has the right to determine with its constitution and laws who has the right to its citizenship. The state has a wide field of discretion when prescribing the conditions for obtaining citizenship, and international law does not limit it. The Constitutional Court did not notice that the legislator, by prescribing the disputed conditions for the restoration of BiH citizenship, was outside the field of free assessment or that it limited some other right of interested persons, or that the disputed provisions prescribe criteria that are arbitrary as such.
With this appeal, Zvizdić wanted to challenge the provisions of the law and thus facilitate re-registration of BiH citizenship for citizens who renounced it due to the impossibility of having dual citizenship in the past years. Since 1996, approximately 97,000 citizens have renounced BiH citizenship to acquire the right to another citizenship.
On the other hand, the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina accepted the second appeal of Denis Zvizdić, which he also submitted as the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the previous convocation. The Constitutional Court, namely, determined that the article of the Law on the Flag of BiH in the part that treats the institutions of BiH as “joint institutions” is not constitutional.
In its decision, the Constitutional Court stated, among other things, that the legislator changed the meaning of Article III/1 by adding the term “joint” in front of the term “institutions” of the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which prescribes the existence of only “institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina”. The term “joint institutions” is mainly used by politicians and media from Republika Srpska in the public space, but it is not used in legal regulations.
