SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Bosnia’s top court on Friday temporarily suspended a set of laws enacted by separatist Bosnian Serb authorities that barred 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.
Bosnia’s Constitutional Court said it had to act quickly because the newly adopted laws “could harm the constitutional order of Bosnia-Herzegovina.” It is expected to declare the laws invalid after thorough deliberation.
Bosnian presidency member Denis Becirovic and two other officials on Thursday lodged an appeal against the set of laws passed earlier this month by Bosnian Serb lawmakers, saying they violate Bosnia’s constitution and a peace agreement that ended Bosnia’s 1992-95 war.
Bosnian Serbs passed the legislation 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, has said he plans to ignore the verdict, which becomes official after an appeals process.
In his first comments on the court’s temporary ruling Friday, Dodik said that he doesn’t recognize Bosnia’s judiciary.
“I know exactly what I am doing, while what they are doing is another matter,” he said on X. “If we allow them to bring us down now, Republika Srpska will never recover. I am fully aware of my actions, and that is my responsibility.”
“I am available to everyone — except the illegitimate Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is politically motivated and aims to create a scandal,” Dodik said in an English language post.
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.
The European Union said the laws “undermine the constitutional and legal order” of Bosnia. The U.S. Embassy in Bosnia issued a statement saying it is deeply concerned about the Bosnian Serb decree.
Bosnia consists of two entities, one dominated by Bosnia’s Serbs and the other run 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.
Dodik was convicted for disobeying the decisions of High Representative Christian Schmidt, the top international official in the country, that sought to curb a 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, a supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump, has had Russia’s backing of his policies. In a statement on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin “expressed solidarity” with Dodik.
Passing of the new laws has spurred fears of armed 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.
