Komšić announces criminal charges over the publication of the RS Law on Medicines

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Željko Komšić confirmed for Radio Free Europe (RSE) that criminal charges will be filed against responsible persons, after the text of the Law on Medicines and Medical Devices of Republika Srpska (RS) was published in the Official Gazette of RS.

"Of course, as we announced, criminal charges will be filed against responsible persons. The authorities of RS clearly do not care about any warnings from the international community. Now, more than ever, the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina is on the move. If this continues, tomorrow the same will happen with the Armed Forces of BiH, with the judiciary, and when it happens, force will have to be used. If it is not responded to, it will mean that they have agreed to what they call peaceful secession," Komšić told RSE on Wednesday, December 29.

The decree on the promulgation of the Law on Medicines and Medical Devices of Republika Srpska was published on Tuesday, December 28, in the Official Gazette of RS.

The decree was signed five days earlier, on December 23, by Željka Cvijanović, President of RS, one of the two entities in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).

The publication states that the Law enters into force six months after its publication in the Official Gazette of RS.

The Law on Medicines and Medical Devices was adopted at a special session in October in the National Assembly of RS.

On December 13, the Council for the Protection of Vital National Interest of the Constitutional Court of RS assessed as unacceptable the request of the Bosniak Club in the Council of Peoples of RS to determine a violation of vital national interest in that Law.

The adopted Law on Medicines of RS provides for the establishment of the Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices of Republika Srpska.

The establishment of an entity agency for medicines is not in accordance with the Constitution of BiH, which is part of the Dayton Agreement, which stipulates that entities cannot take over state competencies or those competencies that, in accordance with the Constitution, have been transferred to the state level.

Since 2009, the Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices of BiH has been operating as a single regulatory body at the state level.