Today, at the first special joint session of both houses of the BiH PA, which began, the deputies and delegates in the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina were supposed to ask questions to the members of the Council of Ministers of BiH, to which they would answer orally, at the session itself.
At the beginning of the joint session, the Speaker of the House of Peoples, Dragan Čović (HDZ BiH), informed the attendees that all 15 delegates from the House of Peoples and 27 deputies from the House of Representatives were attending the session.
He also said that before the session itself, a letter had been received from the Club of Deputies of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) in the House of Representatives stating that the SNSD Club of Deputies would not attend the joint session of both houses because the Constitution of BiH had been violated.
“The Collegium of the House of Representatives does not reflect the situation defined by the Constitution. Our position is not a boycott of the House, but exclusively respect for the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” stated the letter from the SNSD Club of Deputies.
As a reminder, the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH dismissed Nebojša Radmanović (SNSD) from his duties as a member of the Collegium of that house at its session on January 23, and no one has yet been elected to replace him, so that the Collegium of the House of Representatives currently consists of one Bosniak and one Croat.
After this information, Nikola Špirić (SNSD), a member of the Collegium of the House of Peoples of the BiH PA, said that at the 25th regular session, the House of Representatives, forming a new majority, dismissed the Serb member of the Collegium, Nebojša Radmanović, and “thus went outside the Constitution”.
“So, the House of Representatives is in an extra-constitutional position, and the Constitution clearly defines when the house is considered constructed. This is also defined by the Constitution and Article 19 of the Rules of Procedure of the House of Representatives. In the meantime, some things have been happening that are visible and have been implemented to disavow the electoral will of the Serbian people. The creation of a new majority by working with the opposition from Republika Srpska for a long time has led us to a situation, along with these two factors that I have mentioned, where we have decided that the majority of delegates from the Serbian People’s Club in the House of Peoples will not attend today’s plenary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH,” said Špirić.
After his presentation, the Speaker of the House of Peoples, Dragan Čović, stated that they did not have a quorum from the House of Peoples to hold a joint session, and he gave a half-hour break to try to ensure a quorum.
Namely, three delegates from the SNSD in the Serbian People’s Club left the joint session, causing the House of Peoples to lack a quorum.
As previously planned, after the joint session of both houses of the BiH Parliament, an emergency session of the BiH House of Representatives is planned with only one item – the election of Branislav Borenović as the second deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, proposed by the following MPs: Sanja Vulić, Obren Petrović, Ljubica Miljanović, Milorad Kojić and Miroslav Vujičić.
The request for an emergency session was submitted by the MPs of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) and the Serbian Club in the House of Representatives after the SNSD cadre Nebojša Radmanović was dismissed from the position of a member of the Collegium of that House.
MP Branislav Borenović (PDP) previously said that, not that he was not interested, but that it did not occur to him to be elected at the proposal of the SNSD, Federalna writes.
