The 2006 ‘April Package’ of constitutional reforms the Social Democratic Party will propose in Parliament is something that all the main parties in the country agreed on previously already and should suit them again, lawmaker Sasa Magazinovic told N1 on Wednesday morning.
Magazinovic, a lawmaker in the House of Representatives, is a member of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) which announced it would propose the constitutional amendments.
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The package would introduce a single president and vice-president, elected by the Parliament, as opposed to the current three presidents who are elected directly.
It would also strengthen the role of the Parliament, change the role of the upper house, strictly define which issues can be considered a vital national interest, introduce the option of dissolving the parliament if a Council of Ministers is not formed, and introduce European integrations as part of the Constitution.
The April package was back in 2006 endorsed by most parties that are still in the parliament.
“That is why the April Package was proposed – because it was the only proposal of constitutional amendments which the parties of (Bakir) Izetbegovic, (Milorad) Dodik and (Dragan) Covic agreed on,” Magazinovic said, referring to the leaders of the main Bosniak, Serb and Croat parties in the country, respectively.
The three leaders even put it together, and the opposition Serb Democratic Party (SDS), Social Democratic Party (SDP) and Party for Democratic Progress (PDP) supported it, he argued.
“When we talk about this package of amendments, nobody could be called a traitor (if they support it) or accused of working against anything. Nobody can spit on what they themselves wrote and participated in,” he said.
“Our message is that the discussion on the Constitution should be brought back to Sarajevo from, above all, Belgrade, Ankara and Zagreb,” he stressed, arguing that Bosnia’s Parliament is the only place where the Constitution could be changed.
Magazinovic also commented on statements by representatives from the main Serb party, The Alliance of Independant Social Democrats (SNSD), who called the April Package “a distant past,” saying that this is not the first time that party changed its mind.
“The only thing that matters is what will happen in Parliament and how people will vote,” he said, arguing that Bosnian politicians, “say one thing, think another, and do yet another.”
The SDP lawmaker called upon the international community to help bring back the discussion into Bosnian institutions.
“They can do this by returning all the processes they participate in from their residences to the institutions, as they are those who create the habit of local politicians discussing essential issues in places which are not adequate for that,” he said.
