The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Srpska has rejected the request from the Bosniak People's Caucus concerning the appointment of Dragana Cavka to the Board of Directors of Radio-Television of the Republic of Srpska. The decision was made during the 155th session of the Council for the Protection of Vital Interests, which ruled the request inadmissible, citing a lack of connection to the defined vital national interests and insufficient reasoning.

This concerns Dragana Cavka, who was elected by the RS National Assembly on May 28, 2024, to represent the Bosniak community, despite previously identifying as a Serb.

“The Council discussed the admissibility of the request, specifically whether procedural conditions exist to substantively determine whether the contested act of the National Assembly violated the vital national interest of the Bosniak constituent people. The applicant argued that the decision to elect Dragana Cavka to the Board of Directors of Radio-Television of the Republic of Srpska violated the vital national interest of the Bosniak people due to suspicions of manipulation regarding her declared national affiliation. The Bosniak People's Caucus believes that the constitutionally guaranteed protection of the rights of constituent peoples to be adequately represented in legislative, executive, and judicial bodies entails not only numerical representation but also proper representation. This means that the officeholders must genuinely belong to the respective constituent people either by birth or by having long identified as such, rather than changing their identity based on professional or functional requirements,” stated the Council for the Protection of Vital Interests of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Srpska.

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The Council, as noted in the statement, determined that such a request “is not admissible.”

“The Council found that the claims regarding the violation of the vital national interest of the Bosniak people could not be connected to the vital national interests defined by Amendment LXXVII, which supplements Article 70 of the Constitution of the Republic of Srpska. Furthermore, the Council noted that the request's arguments do not clearly specify how the decision violates the vital national interest of the Bosniak people to be adequately represented in legislative, executive, and judicial bodies, considering that the contested decision pertains to the election of a member to the Board of Directors of Radio-Television of the Republic of Srpska, a public enterprise. Therefore, since the reasoning behind the decision to initiate the protection of the vital national interest of the Bosniak people is incomplete, it cannot be considered as reasoning within the meaning of Article 48, Paragraph 1, Line 2 of the Rules of Procedure of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Srpska. The Council decided that such a request is inadmissible,” the Council stated.

Dragana Cavka had previously identified as a Serb in earlier election cycles. She is affiliated with the Socialist Party (SP) and has held positions such as Assistant Minister of Trade and Tourism of RS. On September 14 last year, she was appointed Assistant to the Minister of Finance, Zora Vidović, at an RS Government session, but never assumed the position as the appointment was never published in the Official Gazette of RS. On her Facebook page, Cavka posts photos celebrating Orthodox Easter, quotes Milorad Dodik, and asserts, “We are not a genocidal people.”