The Republic Administration for Geodetic and Property Affairs of Republika Srpska (RUGIPP) has issued a statement regarding the document of the Center for Geopolitical Research “GEOPOL” concerning the legislative solution on the state property of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
RUGIPP stated that the claims in the GEOPOL document are “contrary to the constitutions within BiH and all international conventions.”
“Everything written in the text titled ‘The Issue of State Property of Bosnia and Herzegovina – A Geopolitical and Legal Analysis of Disagreements and a Proposal for a Sustainable Solution with a Draft of Legislative Amendments is entirely contrary to the Dayton Peace Agreement and the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as to the Constitution of Republika Srpska, the Constitution of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and even the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms,” RUGIPP noted.
According to the GEOPOL text proposing a legislative solution on state property, state property is owned by BiH and is classified by its character and purpose into three categories: strategic state property, functional public property, and local development assets.
RUGIPP stated that the text also envisions the alignment of entity laws with the proposed text within a six-month period.
RUGIPP emphasized that under the Dayton Peace Agreement, the territorial division is in accordance with the Geneva Principles and was agreed upon under Annex 2 – the Agreement on the Inter-Entity Boundary Line between Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which stipulates in Article 1 that the boundary between Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina shall be as determined on the map in the Appendix to that agreement.
They claim that “the Constitution of BiH does not prescribe that property belongs to Bosnia and Herzegovina, or that Bosnia and Herzegovina can hold constitutional competence regarding this issue.”
“We emphasize that Article 12 of the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina prescribes that the entities shall amend their constitutions in order to align them with this Constitution; Republika Srpska has done so, and the Constitution of Republika Srpska was aligned with the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2003,” RUGIPP pointed out.
They stated that Amendment XXXII, item 6 to Article 68 of the Constitution of Republika Srpska prescribes that RS regulates and ensures, among other things, property and obligation relations and the protection of all forms of property, while Article 70, paragraph 1, item 2 of the Constitution prescribes that the National Assembly of Republika Srpska adopts laws, other regulations, and general acts.
“Bearing this in mind, from 1995 to the present day, Republika Srpska has legally regulated property relations over all real estate on the territory of Republika Srpska /former social ownership/ through the adoption of the Law on Property Rights and other substantive regulations governing the field of real estate. In a similar, nearly identical manner, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina regulated property relations over real estate by adopting its own Law on Property Rights and other substantive regulations governing the field of real estate. The Law on Property Rights passed the constitutionality review procedure before the Constitutional Court of Republika Srpska and the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the identical provisions, particularly the transitional and concluding ones, were ruled constitutional. If there is a desire to regulate relations over real estate in former social ownership in a different manner, it would be necessary to amend the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, namely the Dayton Peace Agreement, as well as the Constitutions of Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, including the Brčko District, and all substantive regulations passed under the currently valid constitutions, in order to change anything regarding real estate of former social ownership on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” the reaction states.
The reaction underscores that any change would jeopardize the acquired rights of subjects who, in accordance with the constitution and the law, can be the owners of real estate in those territories.
“Considering the aforementioned, it is a legal absurdity and completely impossible to regulate the transformation of property relations over the abolished social ownership on the territory of both entities in a new manner through the proposed law on state property. Repealing all regulations, namely all acts and legal transactions concerning state property, would invalidate an indefinite number of regulations, and it remains unclear whether only individual provisions or the regulations as a whole are being repealed, which simultaneously constitutes a retroactive effect of the law,” reads the statement signed by RUGIPP Director Dragan Stankovic.
