Bosnian Serbs will propose a new law that regulates the Constitutional Court and it will not include foreign judges, Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik told N1 on Sunday, adding that he has the support of the main Bosnian Croat party for that.
“Even the European Commission has pointed out the issue of foreign judges in its opinion and has said that this must be solved,” Dodik said.
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Constitutional courts exist in all countries and their task is to evaluate whether laws are in harmony with the constitution, he said.
“But here, the Constitutional Court has itself defined its responsibilities through internal rules, responsibilities that do not exist anywhere else in the world,” Dodik argued, adding that Bosnia’s Constitutional Court has passed conflicting rulings regarding the same issues.
He said that he discussed the proposal for a new law with Bosnia’s Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH).
“We have previously already agreed that foreign judges can not be sitting in the Constitutional Court as it breaches the sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina, something like that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world,” Dodik said.
According to the Constitution, Bosnia’s Constitutional Court consists of nine judges – two Bosniaks, two Croats, two Serbs and three foreigners.
Dodik has been insisting on strict adherence to Bosnia's Constitution as it was written in Dayton, Ohio, when the country’s peace agreement was signed in 1995.
However, he and the HDZ BiH do want to make one change – kick the foreign judges out, claiming that they always side with the Bosniaks.
Asked what the point of proposing a law Bosniaks in the parliament will never accept is, Dodik hinted that there was no other option.
“Should I wait for this illegitimate court to rule that there are only Bosniaks in this country, that there is only the Bosnian language and that the Dayton Peace Agreement and the name Republika Srpska are annulled?” he asked.
“If the Constitution and the Dayton agreement have said that that the parliament can change this (the setup of the court) after five years, why did we not do that 25 years later?” he asked.
