The Croat caucus in the Republika Srpska (RS) parliament's upper house has launched before the entity Constitutional Court a procedure to contest a law on the protection, preservation and use of the Serbsuan language and the Cyrillic script because it brings local Croats in an unequal position.

The RS parliament symbolically passed the law on 15 September, the Day of National Unity, Freedom and Flag of Republika Srpska and Serbia, which was jointly declared by Serbia and RS.

The Croat MPs in the RS Council of Peoples, supported by the entity's Croat Vice President Josip Jerkovic, say the adoption of the law violates a vital national interest of Croats as well as the entity's constitution, which is why they launched a procedure to protect it.

They said in a statement that the RS constitution equally defines the languages of the Serb, Croat and Bosniak peoples as official languages and the Latin and the Cyrillic as official scripts.

The law is an attempt to favorise the Serb language and the Cyrillic in relation to the languages of the other constituent peoples and the Latin script, according to a complaint launched by the Croat MPs in the RS Council of Peoples.

The adoption of the law would also undermine the equality of the three constituent people, they said.

This law envisages the mandatory use of the Cyrillic script by all institutions, companies and organisations financed with public money as well as for publicly financed events. Failure to comply envisages fines.

The Bosniak MPs in the RS parliament's upper house have launched a procedure for assessing whether vital ethnic interests are being undermined.