The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) condemned Milorad Dodik’s new attempts to weaken and discredit the highest court in the state, as well as the call of the National Assembly of the Republika Srpska (NARS) to the constitutional judge to step down, but the rest of the judicial community was mostly silent about the pressures on colleagues.
A day after the NARS adopted a conclusion calling on Constitutional Court judge Zlatko Knezevic to resign and leave his post, he still has not publicly announced whether he will accept such an invitation, while the leaders of the highest judicial institutions and judges’ associations avoid commenting on the moves by which delegates want to delegitimize future decisions of the highest court in the country.
Waiting for the judge’s decision
The first calls to Judge Knezevic to step down were made recently by the President of RS, Milorad Dodik, who was dissatisfied with the decisions of this court on matters of state property. On Wednesday, the President of the Assembly Nenad Stevandic, explaining the reasons for the delegates’ conclusion, said that he believes that the Constitutional Court will be delegitimized if Knezevic resigns, as he was asked to do.
“It [the Constitutional Court] will not have judges from RS and all decisions it will make in the future, which will probably again concern property and current issues, although legally valid, will be delegitimized and enable us to disavow such decisions more easily,” said Stevandic after the session and added that Knezevic was proposed by the Assembly, but that he cannot be dismissed, and that it is now exclusively the decision of that judge.
“How Mr. Knezevic will behave, we will all see together in the next few days,” added Stevandic.
Discrediting the Constitutional Court
In addition to calling out the judge, Dodik said that future decisions of the Constitutional Court will not be implemented in RS until an agreement on state property is reached. This is not the first time that Dodik has announced the prevention of the implementation of Constitutional Court judgments, which is a criminal offense in BiH. Although the withdrawal of a judge will not formally affect decision-making, the weakening of trust in the work of the court itself and its decisions may damage the reputation of the institution in the long run.
Christian Schmidt, the High Representative in BiH, warned about this.
“The task of politicians in BiH is to finally fully implement Dayton and not talk about it in fabrications. Respect for the constitutional order of BiH is the cornerstone of long-term peace, stability, and progress of BiH,” said Schmidt, Detektor reports.
