Republika Srpska Vice President Ćamil Duraković called on High Representative Christian Schmidt to use the Bonn powers and impose a law on the distribution of state property in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Duraković stressed that the legal framework for this exists and is unambiguous – the Constitutional Court of BiH in cases U-1/11, U-8/19, U-9/19 and U-4/21 has finally determined that Bosnia and Herzegovina, as the legal successor of the Socialist Republic of BiH, is the titular state of all state property, including agricultural land, rivers, forests and forest land.
These judgments are not a starting point for negotiations, but a legal fact that every law must incorporate, not bypass, Duraković stated in the explanation of the request.
Duraković explained that the only acceptable solution is based on a functional-territorial model that stipulates that the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina retains ownership of all property necessary for the exercise of constitutional powers, as well as over the categories defined by the Constitutional Court of BiH as state-owned, while the entities gain the right to manage and use property on their territory that does not fall into these categories.
“The key distinction is between ownership and management: entities can manage forests and use them economically, but formal ownership title follows from law, not from de facto management. Any solution that equalizes this is not a compromise but an inversion of case law,” stated Duraković.
He particularly warned about a procedural risk that is rarely publicly mentioned – the decision of the High Representative made by the Bonn authorities is not subject to the control of the Constitutional Court of BiH, which has been confirmed in domestic practice. If the new High Representative, under pressure for the rapid closure of the OHR, imposes a law that transfers forests, rivers and agricultural land to the entities, that law will effectively neutralize all the aforementioned rulings of the Constitutional Court without any domestic legal remedy.
“In addition, any solution that does not provide for the cancellation of all transactions carried out in violation of the prohibition on disposal from 2005 until today retroactively legalizes everything that the Republika Srpska illegally registered and disposed of as its property during that period,” warns Duraković, Fena writes.
