SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Bosnian officials on Thursday challenged a set of laws barring the state judiciary and police from operating in the Serb-controlled part of the country. The contentious legislation has fueled tensions in the ethnically-divided Balkan country.
The complaint filed at the country’s Constitutional Court jointly by Bosnian presidency member Denis Becirovic and two other officials argues that the laws passed a week ago by Bosnian Serb lawmakers violate Bosnia’s constitutions and a peace agreement that ended Bosnia’s 1992-95 war.
Bosnian Serbs passed the disputed laws after a Bosnian court convicted Milorad Dodik, the pro-Russia president of the Serb-run entity in Bosnia called Republika Srpska. Dodik was sentenced last month in absentia to a year in prison and a six-year ban from public office for his separatist moves.
Dodik, who is not in imminent danger of arrest, said he plans to ignore the verdict, which becomes officials after an appeals process.
Bosnia’s officials say that the set of laws represent a coup and a major step in the disintegration of the country advocated by the Bosnian Serb separatist leader.
Bosnia consists of two entities, one dominated by Bosnia’s Serbs and the other ran by the Bosniaks, who are mostly Muslim, and Croats.
The Dayton peace accords that ended Bosnia’s war, which killed more than 100,000 people, also envisaged that the entities are bound by joint state institutions, including the army, top judiciary and tax administration.
Bosnia rotating three-member presidency is made up of Bosniak, Serb and Croat members while an international envoy overseeing peace has the authority to change laws and impose decisions in Bosnia.
Dodik was convicted for disobeying the decisions of High Representative Christian Schmidt that sought to curb Bosnian Serb pro-independence drive.
Dodik has repeatedly called for the separation of the Serb-run half of Bosnia to join with neighboring Serbia, which prompted the former U.S. administration to impose sanctions against him and his close allies. Dodik has had Russia’s backing for his policies.
Passing of the new laws has spurred fears of incidents between rival Serb and central Bosnian police forces.
The war in Bosnia erupted when the country’s Serbs rebelled against independence from the former Yugoslavia and moved to form a mini-state of their own with the aim of uniting it with Serbia.
