Stevandic: Bosnian Court Declared War on Republika Srpska

A new constitutional dispute between Sarajevo and Banja Luka drew sharp words on Wednesday from the Speaker of the National Assembly of Republika Srpska. The clash matters directly to Belgrade because it touches the core mechanism of the Dayton Agreement itself, the vital national interest veto that underpins the position of the Serb people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and any erosion of that mechanism reshapes the tone official Belgrade uses toward the neighboring entity.

Nenad Stevandic, after a session of the Committee for Constitutional Affairs of the National Assembly of Republika Srpska, said that the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, simply by agreeing to consider a request to review the constitutionality of a veto, had effectively declared war on Republika Srpska. The same day, the committee replied to the court that the request was inadmissible and that the court had no jurisdiction in the matter.

What the dispute is actually about

The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina asked the National Assembly of Republika Srpska to respond to a request filed by the chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denis Becirovic, who is seeking a ruling on the constitutionality of a veto against the appointment of new members to the Commission for the Preservation of National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Presidency, with votes from Becirovic and Zeljko Komsic, had appointed both domestic and foreign experts to that commission. The Presidency member from Republika Srpska, Zeljka Cvijanovic, judged the appointments harmful to the vital interest of the Serb people and imposed a veto on July 7, a decision the National Assembly of Republika Srpska later backed.

Becirovic argues in his request that appointing commission members is not a foreign policy matter, so no veto can be imposed on it under the BiH constitution. The Committee for Constitutional Affairs rejected that reasoning outright, insisting the court has no jurisdiction over the question at all.

“This is a declaration of war on Republika Srpska, questioning the veto, which is a constitutional category,” Stevandic said at the Committee for Constitutional Affairs session.

Stevandic went on to call the move an unprecedented step with no basis in past practice.

“None of this would be in question at all if there had been earlier Constitutional Court rulings on issues like this,” he said, adding that the court had never before questioned the veto in the entire period since the Dayton Agreement was signed.

Why Stevandic brings up Ratko Mladic’s death

The Speaker of the National Assembly of Republika Srpska attributes part of the current pressure to reactions over condolences expressed for the death of Ratko Mladic, who was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity by the Hague Tribunal. The Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina confirmed on Tuesday that, following news of Mladic’s death, it had received thousands of reports against people who glorified him in various ways, and said all of them would be carefully examined. Glorifying a convicted war criminal carries a prison sentence of up to five years in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Belgrade has already faced similar accusations in recent days, after Krajina Square in Banja Luka was recently packed with people marking the general’s death.

Stevandic tied that backdrop to a claim of organized pressure from abroad.

“We believe there is support for this from abroad, but we are certain that support did not come from the United States, Russia or China,” Stevandic said.

Asked by reporters whether such requests would even reach the Constitutional Court if Bosnia and Herzegovina had a law governing the court itself, he said that, in his assessment, such experiments would not even be attempted under those conditions.

Later the same day he sharpened that argument, pointing to foreign sponsors.

“There is foreign influence. And foreign sponsors who told the Bosniaks to go all the way, to bring about a conflict,” Stevandic told reporters.

What happens next

Stevandic said the National Assembly of Republika Srpska would not bow to pressure and would wait for the situation to calm down, but he also warned of consequences if the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina does not dismiss the appeal.

“If the Constitutional Court of BiH does not reject this appeal, everything will be clear to us and we will have to change our political discourse as well. We fear no one, but we want to preserve time for an agreement,” he said.

The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina now has before it a formal response from the National Assembly of Republika Srpska disputing the court’s own jurisdiction, while the political dispute over who gets to interpret the reach of the veto remains unresolved. The next move belongs to the court in Sarajevo, which must decide whether to accept the argument that it lacks jurisdiction or to proceed with Becirovic’s request.