The guests of today’s edition of the Rezime show were Dennis Gratz, DF representative, and Belmin Zukan, SDP representative in the House of Representatives of the Parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The session of the Constitutional Commission was held, they gave a positive opinion on the amendments to the Rules of Procedure, while the Legislative-Legal session was not held – members of the opposition did not attend.
“If I didn’t have an obligation, I would have attended. That is my obligation as a member of the legislative body, there is no reason not to attend the commission sessions. This is a very symptomatic situation, in the context of the commission’s role, this is about the proposal of decisions to amend the Rules of Procedure of the House of Representatives, and in fact it is about the appointment of Marin Vukoja as a judge of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which we want to prevent at all costs because we believe that harmful to BiH and that the constitution is being violated,” explained Gratz.
He emphasized that derogating the competences of the House of Representatives of the FBiH Parliament to other working bodies – Legislative and Legal, Constitutional or Election and Appointment Commission – must be stopped.
“First of all, it’s about the way to fill that commission and they want to fulfill Dragan Čović’s wish at any cost”, he believes.
We will definitely schedule a session of the Legislative and Legal Commission because it is an obligation and because we have to go through several issues, says Zukan.
“First of all, these are three laws that will be the first three items on the agenda of the session of the House of Representatives on the 28th. We will offer at least two more dates until the session is held. Monday or Tuesday next week, one appointment, and if it is unsuccessful, then we will try during that session, that is, before confirming the agenda”, explains Zukan.
Gratz points out that the condition of the DF Club is that the filling of the Constitutional Court is approached, as he says, in the manner prescribed by the constitution and that we have a list with ten candidates, and not just one name – Marina Vukoja.
“I categorically refuse to personally be a tool in the hands of Čović,” he said.
Zukan emphasized that the goal of amending the Rules of Procedure is to enable the filling of commissions.
“What is crucial about these amendments to the Rules of Procedure is, first of all, to be able to fill other working bodies through the Selection and Appointments Committee. We currently have six, soon we will have seven representatives who are not members of any working body. We have a chairperson who has resigned, who the committee cannot dismiss and cannot appoint a new chairperson. There are a lot of problems,” he pointed out.
If we come to a situation where the Legislative and Legal Commission cannot hold a session, we will come to an absolute blockade of the legislative process, and the first victims will be the two laws concerning craftsmen, Zukan is categorical.
Gratz points out that BiH institutions are constantly derogated from, and that only public pressure works here.
“I appeal that we do not get into a situation where we will install Vukoja with qualifications that are far below those of the other candidates. There are several of them who are far more qualified and serious candidates than Vukoja, who was a member of the HDZ. This is a dangerous situation. This whole story that serves as an alibi that everything has stopped here – well, it’s been standing all the time, we didn’t do anything even when the other working bodies were functional. We have sessions that are cancelled, agendas are taken down before the session just like that,” he emphasizes.
He adds that it is very questionable whether the regular session of the House of Representatives will be held next week, “because tomorrow’s session has been canceled due to rain, for security reasons, the roof is leaking”.
“I don’t accept that as an explanation. Obviously, something is rotten among the parties of the coalition. My impression is that additional pressure is being created on the opposition parties to let this go, as an unblocking of work,” said Gratz.
Zukan suggested that the session should be held in BiH institutions, which, as he stated, are completely conditional.
“It can’t happen overnight, let’s ask them to give us the hall for two days”.
Gratz says that the opposition has objections to the very content of the Rules of Procedure.
“A couple of very problematic proposals. In this proposal, the opposition will be completely crippled. This is not democratic, this is the crippling of the opposition’s capacity to oppose the attacks on the Constitution of BiH”.
