Bosnia’s Constitutional Court has suspended legislation passed by the autonomous Republika Srpska region which rejects the authority of the federal police and judiciary on its territory.
The court said on Friday that it was “temporarily suspending” the laws that Bosnian Serb President Milorad Dodik pushed through the regional parliament earlier this week.
The laws were passed days after a court in Sarajevo sentenced Dodik to a year in prison and banned from office for six years for refusing to comply with decisions made by Christian Schmidt – the international high representative charged with overseeing Bosnia’s peace accords.
Since the end of Bosnia’s inter-ethnic conflict in the 1990s, the country has consisted of two autonomous regions – Republika Srpska and a Muslim-Croat federation, which are linked by a weak central government.
Bosnian officials say that Dodik’s laws violate the Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the country’s 1992-95 war, binding the two entities under joint institutions, including the army, top courts and tax authorities.
Dodik on Thursday said he would ignore a summons from Bosnian state prosecutors investigating him for allegedly undermining the country’s constitutional order.
On Friday, he doubled down on his separatist drive, calling on ethnic Serbs to quit the federal police force and courts and join the government of Republika Srpska.
“We have ensured them a job, while preserving their legal status, ranks, and positions. They will receive the same salary, or even a higher salary than they had,” said Dodik.
Dodik later added there were no plans for violent escalation but insisted that Republika Srpska had “the ability to defend itself, and we will do that”.
On Friday, local media reported that the Bosnian Serb Republic’s police had forced federal agents from the State Information and Protection Agency (SIPA) out of their premises in the city of Banja Luka.
But SIPA head Darko Culum later labelled the reports incorrect, insisting that the security situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina was “stable and calm”.
The situation in Republika Srpska remained tense on Friday.
The Srebrenica Memorial Centre – where most of the 8,000 victims killed by ethnic Serb forces in July 1995 are buried – said it had closed its doors “until further notice”, citing uncertainty triggered by the ongoing political crisis.
“This decision has been made due to the inability to ensure adequate security guarantees for our employees, collaborators, guests, and visitors,” said the centre, which is located in the village of Potocari, in an online statement.
