The European Court of Human Rights issued a verdict on the appeal of Slaven Kovacevic, a Serb from Sarajevo and adviser to the Croatian member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Zeljko Komsic.
The verdict suspends the Dayton entity division of the state into two constituencies and orders that BiH be a single constituency in the event of the election of representatives to the House of Peoples, as well as for members of the Presidency. It is also suggested to change the nature and role of the House of Peoples, which even leads, in one variant, to its abolition. In a word, the verdict strongly presupposes the political/civic principle of the ethnic/constitutive principle, writes journalist Momcilo Djurdjicfor Index.
Now, there would be no problem if it were France. But it is not, we are talking about BiH here. Just as I can wear Zlatan’s jersey, but I will still not be Ibrahimovic, so the European Court can make such a decision, but BiH, in this way, will not become France.
A special curiosity is the fact that the appeal came from the cabinet of Zeljko Komsic, a man who four times abused the very principle imposed by the judgment and took advantage of the fact that the Federation is a single electoral unit.
At least this is how the Croats in BiH think, pointing out that Komsic was elected by the votes of the Bosniaks, against the will of the Croats, partly out of pure malice and partly out of the need for the domination of the Bosniak majority within the entity. The Serbs, who together with the Croats make up half of the population of BiH, stand in solidarity, pointing out what would happen to them too if BiH became what Strasbourg mandates in the current ruling.
In the last couple of decades, BiH has been conceptually torn apart, stuck in the gap between a failed federation and an unfinished confederation. It is exactly where Yugoslavia found itself according to the 1974 Constitution after Tito’s death in the eighties. The definition of polity is clumsily hidden behind the euphemism “common state” to conceal its true character.
The judgment of the European Court will not solve anything, except that it will widen the black hole gaping under BiH. Only when the three republics in the confederal state union can pass their own election laws, and not have Dayton, Strasbourg, or a high representative impose it on them, will we be able to hope for the neutralization of malignant nationalism and the survival of BiH as a normal European state.
The difficult and bloody experience of the breakup of Yugoslavia can certainly be avoided, and some new generations can be given the opportunity to freely, without coercion and imposition, develop authentic, sincere, friendly ties and alliances in BiH in the decades ahead, N1 reports.
E.Dz.
