Failure to respect the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina is considered a criminal offense, and sanctions are prescribed by the Criminal Code. Despite that, so far no one in BiH has been held criminally responsible for disrespecting the decisions of the Constitutional Court.
Failure to respect the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina entails criminal liability, but no one has yet responded. Lawyer Vlado Adamovic says that the reason for that, on the one hand, is the justification of the Prosecutor’s Office that it is difficult to conduct investigations in such cases, and on the other, parliamentarians, who, as he states, say that no one can force them to vote.
“There is one obvious omission of both the prosecutor’s office and the parliamentarians, and that is that prosecutors must start summoning the responsible persons in charge of implementing the decisions of the Constitutional Court and this system of elimination will finally reach the one who prevents execution.” they have the right to freedom of opinion that this is not about enforcing freedom of opinion but about enforcing a court decision. ”
When asked why there are no sanctioned, the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH answered that the most common obstacle to the execution of decisions of the Constitutional Court of BiH in the legislative bodies of BiH and its entities is the inability or lack of political will to make legislative decisions.
If the decisions of the Constitutional Court are not respected, then the end of one society, legal experts warn.
Josip Muselimovic, lawyer
“In order for this end not to come, the state prosecutor’s office at all levels must react and must sanction those who do not respect the decisions of the Constitutional Court.”
“I really don’t know whether in other countries, especially developed ones, the decisions of the Constitutional Court were not respected and that there had to be criminal prosecution.”, Arben Murtezic, Director of the Center for Education of Judges and Prosecutors in FBiH, says.
“Who should be responsible for what is not implemented? The BiH Parliament, which should change the laws in accordance with the verdicts. That is what it is about. It is not a criminal offense, the Parliament is obliged to change the legislation based on the Constitutional Court rulings, says Sulejman Tabakovic, the lawyer.
The National Assembly of Republika Srpska (NARS) vice president reminds that there were investigations in such cases.
“Personally, I was the subject of one such investigation related to the referendum procedure conducted in RS. It was even an indictment, but the Court of BiH correctly rejected such an indictment. If the National Assembly in good faith and in accordance with its powers passes a law is possibly unconstitutional, which does not mean that he does not respect or enforce the court decision. ”
The Prosecutor’s Office reminds that the criminal offense of Failure to Execute the Decision of the Constitutional Court of BiH criminalizes officials in the Institutions of BiH, the Entities or the Brčko District as possible perpetrators of the criminal offense.
