When the judiciary bows to politics: How Dodik humiliated the state, and the judiciary issued a statement and the state

For NAP writes: Prof. Dr. Hazim Bašić, member of the Presidency of Krug 99

At the moment when the state should have shown that it is above every individual, the opposite happened - the state (has) bowed. Not to anyone, but to a politician who evaded the judiciary for three months, publicly ridiculed it, passed laws that challenged its legitimacy, and continued the project of institutional destruction of Bosnia and Herzegovina. M. Dodik, the symbol of this rebellion against the legal order, walked into the BiH Prosecutor's Office, gave a statement, and immediately afterwards walked out free, with the broad smile of a political victor.

What would be an act of judicial consistency in normal countries - confronting an accused person who evaded the law - has turned into a tragic farce in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Court and Prosecutor's Office of BiH organized the hearing behind closed doors, without public access, without media, without the basic element of legal transparency. And then, since it was a precisely determined plan and agreement, not a judicial process, they issued a joint statement - which is a legal nonsense in itself. The prosecution and the court as one voice? In which other legal state?

Dodik, at the same time, received confirmation of his power once again. After evading state institutions for months, denying their authority, and doing everything he could to shut them down, he arranged when he would come, under what conditions, and with what guarantees that he would not be detained. His detention was lifted, and the measure by which he is "controlled" is reduced to occasional reporting to the police station in Laktaši, as if he were a petty offender, not a politician accused of undermining the constitutional order.

The most devastating aspect of all is the message the judiciary sent to the citizens: that they are powerless before political power, that laws are applied selectively, and that even the most serious violations of the constitutional order can be forgiven - if you are powerful enough and have enough political pressure behind you. The message to SIPA, judges, prosecutors, and citizens of BiH is clear: if Dodik can mock the state with impunity, so can other criminals who threaten to defend themselves with weapons.

The hearing of M. Dodik due to the accusation that he undermined the constitutional order of the state lasted 5 minutes and 10 seconds, while the legal proceedings against the cantonal minister A. Mesihović for suspicion of mediating employment lasted 2 months and 5 days with detention, with a cinematic arrest in the city center, with long guns and handcuffs. Such is our judiciary.

To make matters more absurd, Dodik, after all the possible insults he directed at foreign diplomats, quietly sent his associates to pay respects at the celebration of the Independence Day of the United States of America. In a political sense, he capitulated to everyone he had yelled at. But, in a judicial sense, he won. Because he is the one who sets the rules of the game, while the judiciary remains a statistician.

This is not a victory for the state. This is a shameful humiliation, an unresolved result, where the state, even when it could have won - chose to lose. Justice has been turned into a caricature, institutions into traders, and the state order into an object of political bargaining. That's what happens when the "Trojka", too immature for high politics, as part of the ruling coalition, "returns the institutions to the people".

In the end, the question remains: what now? If the judiciary capitulated without a fight, who will dare to stand up to Dodik again? And is there anyone left to believe that justice in this country can be achieved for the most powerful, and not just for ordinary citizens? Another dress rehearsal for creeping secession has ended. In the continuation, it is expected that the bearers of the anti-Bosnian project will analyze all the omissions and shortcomings they made this time, so that after better planning, they can take the next step towards secession. In the continuation of the fight for the state, the judiciary has shown that it cannot be counted on.