For days now, there are many reactions regarding the election of the new judge of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), a position for which the partners who currently make up the majority in the Federation of BiH (FBiH)have agreed that will be taken by Marin Vukoja. Another indicative statement appeared yesterday.
The new judge of the Constitutional Court of BiH is selected from the quota of federal judges by the House of Representatives of the FBiH Parliament based on the name or list submitted by the Election and Appointment Commission of that House.
Although it was discussed whether the SDP and Our Party would support the House of Representatives voting only for Vukoja, who after the interviews was evaluated as the best candidate with 1.5 points more than the second-ranked judge Sanela Gorusanovic-Butigan, now it is almost certain that theseparties will act as their coalition partner HDZ asks them to do.
HDZ leader Dragan Covic openly explained to the public why this is so.
“We had a misunderstanding regarding the appointment of a judge in the Constitutional Court of BiH. Such matters, which were agreed orally and with the presence of international representatives, should have been implemented,” Covic said.
So why don’t the political representatives simply come to an agreement and present to their majority in the parliaments what they want so that the representatives can vote their will. The question is rhetorical.
Although tens of thousands of young people left BiH precisely because there is no fair competition for anything in this country, which is a victim of the ambitions of political party leaders who decide on all the details of their lives and prevent them from realizing the basic right to employment, it was expected from the new coalition that was formed on the ruins of the remnants of the great national parties and only the long-ago dream of the Social Democratic Party of this country, to finally act differently than their predecessors did.
Instead, the ruling coalition uses the behavior of its political predecessors from the years behind us as a kind of alibi aimed at justifying political trade.
The commission for the election and appointment of a new judge of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) from the quota of federal judges decided that it will sit again today due to the need to further harmonize the parliamentary majority, and the issue of choosing a judge is one of the most important in BiH.
The problem that this was not done yesterday is that certain members of the Commission do not want the House of Representatives to receive a list with two names, Marin Vukoja, who is close to the HDZ and is a leading civil servant, and Sanela Butigan-Gorusanovic, who is a judge and vice-president of the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC).
The commission consists of 11 members, at least six of whom must vote to submit a list of names, rather than a single name, to the House of Representatives.
Why is the Constitutional Court more important than ever?
If a member of staff close to a political party were elected as a judge of the Constitutional Court, it would mean that out of loyalty or political agreements, when voting at the sessions of the Constitutional Court, he would appoint his court in accordance with the agreements of political leaders, and not in accordance with the Constitution.
Although the HDZ rejects the claims of Vukoja’s political closeness to that party, everyone needs to ask themselves how realistic it is that in today’s BiH some civil servant is not close to one of the parties.
Due to the particularly strongly expressed actions of the nationalist political parties in BiH, which have already announced during the following years, even decades, that they do not see the existence of our country in the form in which it is internationally recognized, the announcement of the confiscation of state property in order to provide the entities with ownership that will virtually give them the outlines of statehood and the desire for limited constitutional changes, it has never been more important who will be the judge of the Constitutional Court.
The Constitutional Court is the bulwark of the protection of the state against any form of unconstitutional activity, and in recent years it has been the first target of all those who are bothered by it in this capacity.
Yesterday’s message after the failed session of the Election Commission and the appointment of the Federation of BiH (FBiH) Parliament that the parliamentary majority will have to be additionally harmonized, unfortunately, sends the message that the selection of a judge could be politically decided analogously to claims about settlements, Klix.ba reports.
E.Dz.
