Valerija Galic, President of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), in an interview with Anadolu Agency (AA), referred, among other things, to the proposal for a law on immovable property, which is under urgent procedure before the members of the National Assembly of the Republika Srpska (NARS), and the celebration of January 9th as the day of the Bosnian entity RS, considering that in none of these two cases, the representatives in the RS do not respect the decisions of the highest court instance in the country.
”As president of the Constitutional Court, I cannot and do not want to comment on the statements of politicians. The Constitutional Court cannot influence whether politicians will respect the decisions of the Constitutional Court. What can possibly be determined is that a decision of the Constitutional Court has not been implemented and inform the BiH Prosecutor’s Office about it for further action. The Constitutional Court made decisions on this issue, in which it found that the RS does not have the constitutional authority to regulate the legal matter that is the subject of the immovable property law, and which is used for the functioning of the public authorities of the RS because this is within the competence of BiH,” Galic pointed out.
Non-execution of decisions of the Constitutional Court is a criminal offense
She emphasized that the decisions of the Constitutional Court are final and binding and their non-execution or prevention of their execution by competent public authorities in BiH constitutes a criminal offense according to Article 239 of the Criminal Code of BiH.
Moreover, when it comes to celebrating January 9th as the day of the RS entity, which the Constitutional Court of BiH declared unconstitutional in its decisions, the President of the Constitutional Court of BiH reminded that there are two decisions of this court on this matter.
”I would like to remind you that the Constitutional Court made two decisions on this issue, U-3/13 of November 26th, 2015, and U-2/18 of March 28th, 2019. Both decisions established the unconstitutionality of the provisions of the Law on Holidays of the RS, which designated January 9th as the Day of the RS. In those decisions, the Constitutional Court gave arguments and opinions, which is why it considers January 9th unconstitutional,” Galic said.
”With the aforementioned decisions, the Constitutional Court did not in any way call into question the existence of the RS Day holiday itself but determined that the very choice of January 9th to mark the RS Day is not in accordance with the Constitution of BiH and relevant international instruments. Since the RS had not implemented the decision U-3/13, the Constitutional Court annulled the contested provision of that law by a decision on non-implementation dated September 30th, 2016,” she added.
Ignoring the principle of the rule of law
”In addition to the fact that non-implementation of the decisions of the Constitutional Court is a criminal offense for which criminal liability is prescribed, it is also an indicator that the legislative and executive authorities in BiH do not care about respecting the constitutional principle of the rule of law. This further means that, in addition to individual criminal responsibility, there should also be political responsibility of politicians and parties that make up the legislative and executive power. However, this would require a society that is willing to seriously hold politicians accountable,” stated the President of the Constitutional Court of BiH.
As for the number of unexecuted decisions, according to the latest report adopted by the Constitutional Court of BiH in July 2022, there were a total of 11 unexecuted cases from the jurisdiction of constitutional protection, four each from the ParliemanterayAssemly of BiH (PABiH) and Parliament of the Federation of BiH (PFBiH), two from NARS and one from the Commission for Concessions, and one decision partially unexecuted. There are ten unexecuted cases from the appellate jurisdiction, and there are 55 partially executed decisions related to the execution of final decisions of regular courts at the expense of the budget, Politicki.ba reports.
E.Dz.
