The Tuesday decision by the Central Election Commission (CIK) on the allocation of seats in the Federation (FBiH) entity parliament will be automatically annulled if the Constitutional Court accepts a motion filed by a Bosnian Croat politician regarding the upper house of that parliament, legal expert Vehid Sehic told N1 on Wednesday.
“The Constitutional Court must urgently act on Borjana Kristo's motion, which disputes the FBiH Constitution's provisions on the selection of a delegate from a canton provided that he is elected,” said Sehic, a former CIK member.
Earlier this year, Kristo filed the motion to Bosnia's Constitutional Court challenging a constitutional provision which prescribes that each of ten cantons in the FBiH would delegate a representative of each of three major ethnic groups to the Federation's House of Peoples.
This provision is discriminatory, according to Kristo, as it stipulates that certain cantons would nominate a delegate of ethnic groups that represent an insignificant part of their population.
Since the court has not ruled yet upon this motion, the election commission decided on Tuesday that the House of Peoples would be composed in line with this principle and with the 2013 population census results.
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“If Borjana Kristo's motion is accepted, this decision will automatically be annulled,” Sehic said.
He claims it is necessary to use all legal means to assess the constitutionality of this decision, stressing that “the law must be respected.”
Bosnia is composed of two semi-autonomous entities, Republika Srpska (RS) dominated by the Serbs and Federation (FBiH) that is shared by the Bosniaks and the Croats.
