The Government of the Republika Srpska has transferred the ownership of about 300,000 square meters at the Putnikovo brdo location to the City of Doboj, and in fact it is a military facility that is registered as state property, while the Office of the High Representative (OHR) says that the international community will follow these and similar cases with due care.
As the OHR told FENA in a requested response, in accordance with what the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina confirmed in its decision from 2012, the Constitution of BiH establishes that the State of BiH is the owner of state property, including non-perspective military property.
The OHR once again called on the political parties to adopt the state law on the distribution of state property, which would be in accordance with the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but they did not answer the question whether the OHR, as a guarantor of the Dayton Peace Agreement, of which the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina is a part, will , take concrete steps in this case.
– The adoption of the state law is the only way to ensure legal certainty and use the economic potential of this property. No one should question the rule of law – they stated.
This decision was officially made with the aim of enabling certain investments that Doboj is planning, but it is against the repeated decisions of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which shows the lack of a register for tracking assets under a prohibition of disposal.
Also, the president of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik said that this entity will do everything to return all property to its jurisdiction with the new law on immovable property.
The last such law was adopted by the National Assembly of Republika Srpska, and on the day of its entry into force, the high representative of the international community in BiH, Christian Schmidt, suspended the law, and then the Constitutional Court of BiH adopted a temporary measure prohibiting the application of the law until a final decision on the merits.
Members of the BiH Presidency, state deputies and delegates then submitted a request for a constitutional review because, they said at the time, only the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH can decide on state property.
The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina already ruled in six previous cases, before the last one, that the National Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina. entity Republika Srpska does not have the constitutional authority to discuss state property because that is the exclusive competence of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH.
According to that entity law, immovable property used by the authorities of the RS, local self-government units, public companies, public institutions and other services established by the RS, “by force of law” belongs to them. This is contrary to the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Namely, in its decision from September, the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina stated that the Republika Srpska does not have the constitutional authority to regulate the legal matter that was the subject of the then immovable property law.
By the way, the very announcement that the issue of the law whose unconstitutionality was found to be unconstitutional by the highest judicial instance in BiH – the Constitutional Court of BiH, caused numerous reactions in BiH.
