Bosnian Serb parties condemned on Thursday an announced initiative by the main Bosniak political party to challenge the name of Bosnia’s Serb-majority semi-autonomous Republika Srpska at the Constitutional Court because it discriminates against non-Serbs.
The Party for Democratic Action (SDA) said on Wednesday that it will ask the Constitutional Court whether the name ‘Republika Srpska’ is in line with the Constitution, saying that the name does not take into account the fact that Bosniaks and Croats also live there.
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“Submitting the appeal to check whether the name Republika Srpska is in line with the Constitution is an anti-Serb and anti-constitutional action and a direct attack on the integrity and sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” a joint statement from the Bosnian Serb parties said.
The Serb member of Bosnia’s tripartite Presidency, Milorad Dodik, who is also the leader of the ruling party in the RS, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), read out the statement that said the name Republika Srpska was confirmed in the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the Bosnian war and contains the country’s Constitution.
Dodik also argued that the Dayton Agreement says that “Bosnia and Herzegovina is composed of Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” hand the RS entity is a signatory to all 11 annexes to the document and that without it there would be no Bosnia as it exists today.
The parties also expressed distrust toward the Constitutional Court, saying that if the body accepts the SDA appeal, “it will be perceived as a flagrant breach of the Dayton Peace Agreement.”
“We will ask for a special session in the RS National Assembly where we will decide on the future status of Republika Srpska, if the appeal is accepted,” Dodik said.
Vukota Govedarica, the leader of the Serb Democratic Party (SDS), an opposition party in the RS, said that the “constitutional order in Bosnia and Herzegovina” is jeopardised if the name of the entity is challenged.
“After a long time, we sat down together and spoke about the anti-Dayton announcements from the SDA which have caused a turmoil within 24 hours. They (the SDA) are only interested in tensions between the national groups,” said Borislav Borenovic, the leader of the RS opposition Party for Democratic Progress (PDP), adding that the SDA has “caused political chaos.”
The leader of the Socialist Party, Petar Djokic, called the SDA initiative an “irresponsible move” and that it could “produce the biggest, most dramatic crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
The leader of the United Srpska (US) party, Nenad Stevandic, thanked SDA leader Bakir Izetbegovic “for contributing to us uniting on national issues.”
Dragan Cavic, the leader of the National Democratic Movement (NDP), pointed out that there are three foreigners and two Bosniaks sitting in the Constitutional Court, and that they can outvote the other court members.
The Court is composed of nine members, two members per majority ethnic group in the country and three foreign judges. Bosnian Serb politicians have been complaining for years that the foreigners tend to side with Bosniaks and “outvote” members from the other two ethnic groups.
“Justice and the Peace Agreement, as well as international law, are on our side, but the math is not,” Cavic said.
