“I believe that the concepts that were imposed for the purpose of appointing the Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) represent further ethnonationalization of the constitutional and legal order of the FBiH, and that ethnonationalization is no longer in accordance with European standards, and even in some aspects with aspects of civilization in the 21st century,” told Nedim Ademovic, an expert in the field of constitutional law.
Ademovic believes that encroaching on the Constitution of the Federation, in the way Christian Schmidt did, was not the authority of the high representative. He says that Schmidt’s decision has both bad and good sides. It is bad, he believes, that the decision leads to further ethnonationalization of society and does not contribute to relaxation on the political scene.
The Government of the Federation is not fully imposed
The good side of the decision of the high representative, as Nedim Ademovic believes, is that the formation of the Government of the FBiH was finally made possible and that it was not imposed, as claimed by the Party of Democratic Action.
“The Government has not been imposed in its entirety. In fact, the signature of the Vice President of the FBiH, Mr. Lendo(FBiH Vice President Refik Lendo – SDA) was imposed. He was replaced by the decision of the High Representative. However, not related to the high representative’s decision, that Government had to get 50+ votes in the Parliament of the FBiH, which is what happened. Because the high representative did not impose the Government but only imposed that signature, and someone had to find a majority in the FBiH Parliament,” explains Ademovic.
In a normal state, Milorad Dodik would already be responsible for the attempted secession
Constitutional law expert Nedim Ademovic hopes that the new coalition partners who are talking, first of all with SNSD, will find a way to strengthen state institutions. Now the situation is such that, as he says, many powers of BiH are only on paper.
“Regardless of the fact that the Constitutional Court enjoys a monopoly of power, that the Parliament of BiH is superior to the entities, that the Constitution of BiH should be respected, that there is, as in every state, a clear supremacy of state institutions, the state constitution, state laws over entities, state BiH has no factual power. This means that the police forces, the military forces, all other institutions that should actually impose what the state decides with a monopoly of force, do not have the strength to do so,” Ademovic claims.
In his opinion, the international community certainly has the answer to the crisis in BiH, and the events of the last three months have shown that.
“If, God forbid, it happens that Milorad Dodik really starts secession, if he physically tries to separate the entity, sets up controls on the inter-entity demarcation lines, if he approves laws declaring disobedience to the state, etc., the international community will intervene,“ explained constitutional law expert Nedim Ademovic.
