Although the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Christian Schmidt, after the marking of January 9th 2023 as the unconstitutional “Day of Republika Srpska (RS),” categorically claimed that such manifestations would not be repeated the following year, reality quickly and brutally proved him wrong.
In 2024 as well, the authorities in this entity organised identical events, with parades, ceremonies, and political messages that openly trample on the decisions of the Constitutional Court of BiH. The same will happen this year. The only difference is that violations of the Constitution have become routine, without noise, without scandal, and without reaction.
Since the last session of the Peace Implementation Council (PIC), held at the beginning of December, Schmidt has practically disappeared from the political reality of BiH.
Instead of the announced decisive moves and the use of the Bonn powers, the High Representative has been reduced to a protocol figure, to statements without consequences and meetings without results. Institutional inaction has replaced political responsibility.
The snowstorm that has hit BiH in recent days has metaphorically frozen even the little authority that Schmidt had shown so far. Schmidt simply “thaws” only when a southerly wind blows from Zagreb!
However, the greatest and most serious responsibility does not lie exclusively with the Office of the High Representative (OHR) or the international community. It lies within the state of BiH itself and has a name: the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH.
For years, the unconstitutional marking of January 9th has been taking place before the eyes of judicial institutions, without a single serious investigation, without a single indictment, without a single attempt to protect the constitutional order of the state. Decisions of the Constitutional Court of BiH can be ignored without any consequences.
Such systemic inaction by the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH has directly contributed to the normalisation of January 9th. What was once an open legal and political incident has today been transformed into a “technical issue,” into a day that in practice is treated as a legal holiday.
That this normalisation has gone too far is also evidenced by conversations with employees of state institutions. Quite uncritically, they state that employees of Serbian nationality do not come to work on January 9th, while heads of institutions adjust work schedules to that fact, as if it were a legally recognised holiday and not an unconstitutional date.
Almost no one even raises the question of responsibility anymore. And without responsibility, there is no state.
In that silence, in that institutional capitulation, January 9th has been normalised not because it has become lawful, but because those who were obliged to stop it decided to do nothing. They are led by Milanko Kajganic, who came to the head of the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH thanks to the current authorities, who accordingly also bear part of the responsibility for the normalisation of the celebration of January 9th!, NAP writes.
