Officials at the Court of BiH has issued strongly-worded objections to a new draft law prepared by Republika Srpska as part of the EU-led Structured Dialogue on Justice. The draft, which EU and BiH officials have agreed to use as the basis of discussions going forward, deals with the establishment of a new appellate court, separate from the BiH Court, with the selection of judges, and with the contentious issue of the Court’s jurisdiction. Republika Srpska insists that the Court should not have the power to arbitrarily exercise jurisdiction over entity-level matters. The Court, however, has resisted any changes to the current status quo.
In its comments, the Bosnian court claims that the Bosnian Serb entity has proposed the changes because it want to minimise the power of the Sarajevo judicial institution or abolish it altogether.
But the Republika Srpska justice ministry told BIRN that this was not true, and it only wants to “abolish the expanded jurisdiction under which the Bosnian court can take over cases opened according to entity laws”.
