Dodik: Bosnia's Constitutional Court Is Unconstitutional

Milorad Dodik, president of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, said on July 19 that the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina does not deserve to have representatives of the Serb people sitting on it, describing the institution as an unconstitutional court. He made the statement against the backdrop of a long-running dispute between Republika Srpska and state-level institutions, and it is rhetorical rather than institutional in character.

In his own words, Dodik viewed the court as a “place of Serb inquisition”, repeating an assessment he has voiced from Banja Luka for years. The same day, he stated that, in his view, Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot function so long as the high representative retains the so-called Bonn powers, the mechanism by which the international envoy can impose laws and remove officials.

What lies behind the repeated “unconstitutional court” claim?

The dispute over Bosnia’s Constitutional Court is not new. For years Banja Luka has challenged the institution’s legitimacy, chiefly because of the presence of three foreign judges appointed by the president of the European Court of Human Rights, arguing that such a composition has no basis in the will of the constituent peoples. Sarajevo institutions, for their part, treat the court as the final arbiter of the constitutional order, whose rulings bind every level of government.

Dodik’s message that Serbs “should not sit” on the court is a political signal, not a legal move. The Constitutional Court continues to operate at full strength regardless of such statements, and no decision to withdraw judges from the Serb people has formally been taken. This is, then, a sharpening of tone at a moment when relations between the entities and the state remain tense.

On the Bonn powers, Dodik’s position is likewise not isolated. Part of the domestic and international public holds that these powers should be abolished as an anachronism from the 1990s, while others warn that removing them would strip away the last safeguard against unilateral moves. The Office of the High Representative had not responded to the latest statements by the time this article was published.

How is the political scene reacting?

Sarajevo-based parties typically read such statements as pressure on state institutions and a continuation of a policy of contestation. Representatives of Bosniak parties and some Croat parties have previously dismissed Dodik’s assessments of the court as an attempt to weaken the only body empowered to review constitutionality. In Banja Luka, by contrast, the governing majority presents such messages as a defense of Republika Srpska’s constitutional position and its competences.

For now this is a statement, not a formal decision by any organ of government. Republika Srpska has not adopted an act to withdraw its personnel from the Constitutional Court, nor has any legislative procedure to that effect been launched. That is why the remark stays at the level of a political message, whose reach the further course of relations between Banja Luka and Sarajevo has yet to reveal.

What can be said with certainty is that the dividing line between entity and state institutions is being underlined again, at a moment when the region is watching every move around the status of the high representative and the future of Bosnia’s constitutional arrangement. Whether this rhetoric stays at the level of statements or grows into concrete institutional steps is a question that will mark the coming political autumn. Where, in your view, is the line between legitimate criticism of an institution and denying its very existence?