Southern Gas Interconnection - Ensuring Legal Security for Investors and BiH Sovereignty!

By Muharem Cero

Although the certainty of the American investor is hinted at, the method of realizing the Southern Gas Interconnection project itself is less certain.

For now, only the method of the route of the S.I. and the resolution of property-legal issues for its realization are being hinted at.

The most frequently mentioned is the legal institute of concession. It is also known that the possible route largely covers land that is under a ban on disposal due to the Law on the Temporary Ban on Disposal of State Property from 2005. The Law on State Property is in procedure, and a parliamentary debate in the PSBiH is being announced.

The Constitutional Court of BiH, in several of its decisions, and particularly in decision U3/24, determined that the reallocation of state property under ban is the exclusive jurisdiction of the titular (the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina) and not of any sub-state constitutional arrangement, including the Bosnian-Herzegovinian entities.

The Law on the Ban established the possibility of exempting property under ban, giving this authority to the commission of the Council of Ministers for State Property, which has used this right on several occasions after determining the general interest.

In order to ensure legal security for investors and enable the construction of the S.I. project, while also ensuring the confirmation of the constitutional sovereignty of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, it is necessary to apply the existing model of exemption through the Commission or, through a lex specialis, by determining the criteria of general interest, establish the procedures and modalities for these actions. Both forms, commission-based or lex specialis, would be within the capacity of the state level of government and would confirm its sovereignty.

These models are in line with the model of state property disposal applied in the so-called property transfer process in realizing the right to build the American embassy in Sarajevo - the Marshal's roadmap.

http://nap.ba/post/689364/u-susret-izbornom-zakonu-marsalka-moze-biti-mapa-puta-za-funkcionalnost-bih

IN ANTICIPATION OF THE ELECTION LAW Marshal(ka) can be a roadmap for BiH's functionality

By Muharem CeroThere is an old Bosnian saying, "what drips from the cap also leaks." Exactly like that, uninvited, through the front door with a dropper into the public and political space...

It is questionable, and very possible, that the route of the S.I., in the part passing through property under ban, also covers property (forest and agricultural land) subject to restitution and return, legally forcibly expropriated private property. Therefore, by reviewing the land registry history, it would be necessary to establish the factual situation, and by resolving this issue, to also resolve the method of compensation - either through substitute property or financially.

Legal uncertainty in the process of realizing the S.I. project could slow down or even prevent the entire process, which could lead to undesirable arbitration proceedings with unforeseeable material damage to the FBiH.

Any other approach would relativize the confirmation of the sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which would be a backdoor opening for changes of a constitutional-legal nature in BiH according to an anti-Dayton model (from a state community to the confederation of Bosnia and Herzegovina). The consequences of both should not be explained in detail.