The Council for the Protection of Vital Interests of the Constitutional Court of the Republika Srpska (RS) entity determined that the Law on Referendum and Citizen Initiative and the Electoral Law of the Republika Srpska do not violate the vital national interests of the constituent Bosniak people.

In the decision concerning the Law on Referendum and Citizens’ Initiative, the Council pointed out, among other reasons, that the provisions on the multi-ethnic composition of the authorities for the implementation of elections or referendums and provisions on the proportional representation of political parties are equally binding and that they do not create any form of unequal rights of constituent peoples in the decision-making process.

“Namely, the Council assessed that all constituent peoples and Others are in an equal position concerning the aforementioned provision of the law and that no member of the Bosniak people registered in the voting register is denied the right to vote. According to the Council, the realization of this right is valid for every voter who is registered in the voter's register, regardless of which ethnicity or national minority they belong to,” the RS Constitutional Court said.

In the decision concerning the RS Election Law, the Council found that the disputed provision, stipulating that a voter who has the right to vote in the city or municipality where they resided in 1991, did not put persons of Bosniak ethnicity in an unequal position which ensures the proportional representation of the constituent peoples based on the 1991 census.

Other allegations from the explanation about the violation of the vital national interest of the Bosniak people were assessed by the Council as general since they do not contain legal arguments in terms of constitutional guarantees on the protection of vital national interests and cannot be linked to the provisions of Amendment LXXVII to the RS Constitution, which amended Article 70 of the Constitution, which defines the vital national interests of the constituent peoples in the RS.