European Union demands European laws, BiH authorities want ethnic judiciary with party management!

By: Rasim Belko

The latest European Commission Report on Bosnia and Herzegovina for 2025, particularly the part concerning the judiciary, arrived like cold coffeehouse truth, without sugar, without makeup, without diplomatic niceties. Brussels clearly states that if BiH wants to be European, it must adopt laws that are not European only in name, but in substance. Therefore, one cannot build Europe in the morning and tear down the foundations of the state and its European path in the evening.

The European Commission is demanding a new Law on the HJPC, fully aligned with the Venice Commission's Opinion. And that opinion has more than 50 serious remarks on what the Ministry of Justice tried to push through. Fifty remarks! When translated into amendments, it turns out that it's not about fixing minor issues, but about the fact that the entire law is flawed. Like when a handyman comes to "just fix the roof," and tells you your house is "rotten" from the foundation up.

And when you look into the Venice Commission's remarks, everything becomes clear. They politely state: "Select people based on expertise, not bloodline." The authorities respond: "Okay, but let's first see who is one of ours."

The European Council clearly stated in December 2024: "Respect the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights and the opinions of the Venice Commission." If this is not respected, and it is not, what kind of European path are we talking about?

Everything that Minister Davor Bunoza and his team from the Ministry of Justice propose is unacceptable to the Venice Commission. The new composition of the HJPC, the termination of the mandate of the current convocation, the possibility for some members to reapply based on ethnic quotas… The result? It no longer depends on the quality of work, integrity, or expertise, but on who belongs to whom. This is no longer reform, it is the legalization of a political trench from which judges and prosecutors would be pulled out directly by cables of party obedience and ethnic affiliation. In other words, BiH's judiciary would be served on a platter to the HDZ, SNSD, and, let's be honest, the SDA. Three peoples, three treasuries, one judiciary, according to the principle of "who can carry more."

The narrative that has recently emerged and is linked to these laws on ethnic proportionality, all while invoking the BiH Constitution, is far from reasonable.

The only problem is that no one reads the original version of the Dayton Peace Agreement, the only one that, according to the OHR's interpretation, is considered acceptable. The dispute between various politically interested parties over ethnic parity, proportionality, and invoking the BiH Constitution in this context is meaningless, resulting from a poor and unofficial translation of the BiH Constitution.

The original Article IX/3 of the BiH Constitution reads: "Officials appointed to positions in the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina shall be generally representative of the peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina." Therefore, there is no mention of constituent peoples, parity, or proportionality…

But that's not all. The Venice Commission also warns of bizarre things – a body with an even number of members that can be blocked, an unacceptable election procedure, shortening mandates without justification… and so on, up to the famous 50 remarks. When you tell an institution that travels the world assessing laws, "No, we will do it our way anyway," then the problem is no longer with the law, but with sound political reasoning.

The Law on the Court of BiH is not faring any better. The Venice Commission, in its second opinion from 2023, had over 30 remarks. The most important among them: you cannot strip the Court of BiH of its jurisdiction by invoking the place where the crime was committed. The Court of BiH derives its strength from the damage inflicted on the state, not from geography. This is not a story about the address of the Appellate Court, as some are trying to present it. This is a battle for the existence of state judiciary. If you strip it of its jurisdiction, you get a state with a court on paper, but without a body that can speak, but cannot prosecute corruption and attacks on the constitutional order.

And everything is further complicated by the fact that it is not even clear how the Appellate Court would be filled. According to the proposals so far, the president could, by regulation, without a deadline, decide on appointments. In a country where the electoral process has been perceived as an unsupervised casino for years, the absence of an Appellate Court means one thing – appeals would have nowhere to go. This is a recipe for election results without control and for power obtained through pressure, confirmed by silence.

Therefore, the European Commission's Report is not just a technical document. It is something between a diagnosis and a warning before surgery. Brussels clearly states: align the laws with the Venice Commission to make them European. Simple, precise, and with no room for embellishment.

If this does not happen, we will again witness political marketing of the type "historic European laws," while in essence, it will be the most ordinary implementation of the political desires of Čović and Dodik, with the assistance of domestic European speakers who end their favorite sentence with "until Brussels says otherwise."

And the opposition? As usual, it is preoccupied with itself. It seems that some of them are counting more on entering some future government than on defending the state at the present moment. As if they are asking themselves what is more important – the judiciary or a new mandate, the state or another minister, the future of the country or "let's (again) try a little bit."

One thing is certain: institutions are the last line of defense. If they fall, we will have nowhere to appeal. Neither in court, nor in history.