Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik's new laws spark major political crisis

The president of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Serb-majority entity of the Republika Srpska (RS), Milorad Dodik, has introduced new laws meant to ban the operation of state-level security and judicial institutions in what comprises about half of the Western Balkan country’s territory. 

The acts, which were previously adopted by the RS’ National Assembly, came in response to the first-instance verdict by the state-level Court of BiH against Dodik issued last Wednesday, causing a major political crisis in the EU membership hopeful. 

The Sarajevo-based court sentenced the Bosnian Serb leader to one year in prison and barred him from politics for six years for going against the decisions of the international community’s peace envoy, German diplomat Christian Schmidt, which constitutes a criminal act. The verdict is not final, and Dodik can appeal it.

In Bosnia, the High Representative acts as the chief arbiter in high-profile disputes and the key figure overseeing the implementation of the Dayton Agreement, signed in 1995 to stop the war in the country. 

The agreement brought about the end of the war between the country's three main ethnic groups — Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats — that began in 1992 during the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia, deemed as the bloodiest conflict on European soil since World War II. 

The peace deal, parts of which act as the country's constitution, split the country into two main administrative units, or entities: the Serb-majority RS and the Bosniak-Croat Federation of BiH (FBiH), partially overseen by an umbrella state-level government. 

Meant to appease the former belligerents, it created a complicated system of checks and balances, said to be the world's most complex democracy. 

On Thursday, Dodik — who has rejected the verdict as instigated by Bosniaks, as well as High Representative Schmidt’s legitimacy — asked the Bosnian citizens for calm, blaming Bosniak politicians for what he said was warmongering and “revenge against the Serbs”. 

“They believe that they should eliminate in the political sense every Serb who does not correspond to their political projections,” Dodik added. 

Neighbouring Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić said he had insisted Dodik go to the capital for talks after the verdict, but there was no response “apart from a barrage of insults”. 

“I have always considered that any conversation is better, more beneficial and more important than any display of strength, power and force,” Vučić emphasised. 

Meanwhile, one of the members of the three-way Bosnian Presidency, Denis Bećirović, said that he has filed a request with the country’s Constitutional Court over the constitutionality of the latest set of laws. 

Apart from Bećirović, the speakers of the state-level Parliamentary Assembly's two chambers, Denis Zvizdić and Kemal Ademović, stated they would do the same.