The last plenary session of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina was held on September 28, and the Grand Council of this court has not been able to sit for more than a year due to the lack of three retired judges. Due to the entity’s non-appointment of new judges, the Constitutional Court is currently not considering dozens of appeals sent by citizens, and the blockade of the BiH Constitutional Court prevents appeals in Strasbourg as well.
As of January 2, the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina will be without a third judge. Zlatko Knežević, after the call of the President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik to resign from the position of judge of the Constitutional Court, submitted a request for early retirement, which was granted. Judges Miodrag Simović and Mato Tadić retired earlier. The Constitutional Court has been working with an incomplete convocation for more than a year, all because the competent entity authorities refuse to appoint new judges for the Constitutional Court.
“We are trying in every possible way to prevent the blocking of the work of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We cannot make a large number of decisions, we tried, in order to avoid the blocking of work, to make urgent decisions in the plenary session,” says Valerija Galic, President of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The authorities from Republika Srpska condition the appointment of judges to the Constitutional Court by passing the Law on the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Law on Termination of the Mandate of Foreign Judges, which the representatives of the political bloc from the Federation do not agree to for now.
“I appreciate that it is significant and important to stick to the positions of the National Assembly of the Republika Srpska and other institutions of the RS as an elementary issue, which arises from 14 priorities, the adoption of the Law on the Constitutional Court and the adoption of the Law on the Termination of the Mandate of Foreign Judges in the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” says Stasa Kosarac, Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Professor Kasim Trnka assesses that the authorities of Republika Srpska are trying to undermine the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the fact that there are no more judges from the RS in it can challenge its legitimacy.
“It is an obvious intention to block the work of the Constitutional Court, when they cannot exclude foreign judges, then in this way they will block the work of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is a direct anti-constitutional action, and the high representative must be on the move .”, explains Kasim Trnka, professor of constitutional law.
The High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina,Christian Schmidt, said in an interview for BHRT that he does not rule out the possibility of intervention.
