The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina sent a letter to the Central Election Commission, implying that Milorad Dodik, in accordance with the legal consequences of the final court verdict issued against him for failing to implement the decisions of the High Representative in BiH, cannot be the president of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats either. Dodik was sentenced to one year in prison and, as a security measure, a ban on exercising the office of president of Republika Srpska for six years, from the date the verdict became final.
The CEC refused to strip Dodik of his mandate as president of the SNSD, and the Court of BiH reminded in its letter that, according to the provisions of the Criminal Code of BiH, the legal consequence of the sentence imposed, among other things, includes “termination of official duty and termination of employment, as a legal consequence of the conviction, which also applies to the termination of official duty and work or employment in a legal entity, regardless of the method of financing it”.
The Court stated that, according to Article 7 of the Law on Political Organizations of the RS, political organizations have the status of a legal entity, which is acquired by registration.
“Article 15 of the same Law stipulates that the register of political organizations shall be kept by the basic court in the seat of the higher court according to the seat of the political organization. The register shall, among other things, also include data on the names of persons authorized to represent them, as well as data on other facts,” the Court states.
The Court added that the legal consequences of the Dodik verdict, according to Article 5 of the Criminal Code of BiH, are not a criminal sanction, which is why they “are not determined, pronounced or entered in the verdict, given that they occur automatically”, that is, by force of law, when the verdict becomes final.
The letter adds that Article 18 of the SNSD Statute, adopted on the basis of the Law on Political Organizations, stipulates, among other things, that the president of the SNSD is the political and executive body of the SNSD and that the president of the SNSD represents and represents that political party.
According to the Criminal Code of BiH, it is added that an official, among others, is considered to be a person “who, with or without compensation, performs a certain official duty based on the authority of the law or other regulation adopted on the basis of the law”.
“Having appreciated the above, the Court once again emphasizes that, in accordance with the above legal regulations, you should take all actions aimed at recording and enforcing the imposed security measure and the legal consequences of the conviction, in relation to the convicted Milorad Dodik”, concluded the Court of BiH in its letter to the CEC.
In early August, the commission stripped Dodik of his mandate as President of the RS, based on a final court verdict, but later refused to strip him of his mandate as leader of the SNSD, justifying this by the fact that High Representative Christian Schmidt had previously prohibited financing the SNSD from budgetary funds. The CEC decided to forward the letter from the Court of BiH to the court and prosecutor’s office responsible for the court register in which Milorad Dodik is registered, namely the Basic Court in Banja Luka and the Banja Luka District Prosecutor’s Office.
