Komšić: I will file a criminal complaint when the conclusions of the NSRS are published in the Official Gazette

SARAJevo, (Patria) - The Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Željko Komšić, said that lower government bodies have no constitutional possibility to derogate state laws, so it is clear that this is an attack on the state in the case of the NSRS conclusions. 

The highest legislative body in BiH, the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH, has passed laws by which state institutions are formed and their competencies defined.

Komšić has already called on the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina to prosecute persons responsible for the open attack on the constitutional order, including the BiH Presidency member Milorad Dodik, as he is the initiator of a "criminal group that has united in committing illegal acts".

It is unclear to him why the BiH Prosecutor's Office has not yet acted ex officio by opening an investigation, but he announced that he will file a criminal complaint the moment these conclusions are published in the Official Gazette of Republika Srpska.

He announced that a criminal complaint will be specifically considered against officials heading entity institutions because, according to Komšić, they have been tasked with drafting entity laws that derogate state laws, and persons from executive bodies are not covered by immunity.

He stressed the importance of respecting the sequence of institutional steps in responding to attacks on the constitutional order and the state, because the response to such actions must be institutional.

"I repeat this often because people are emotional and impressionable, and in such circumstances, you can make the biggest mistakes with the best intentions. I am also saying this to international officials whom we are calling on to react, because it is better for them to stop it than for us to stop it, which will be inevitable if the international community's inertia continues," Komšić told Fena.

He adds that the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina are tired of the phrases of certain international officials about ending inflammatory rhetoric on all sides, because it is an unacceptable political relativization of the crisis, but he says he is armed with patience, although it too has its limits.

"We will not allow Dodik to prepare for a final showdown with the state in peace in the next few months, so that when the situation escalates, we will again hear calls to end the rhetoric. We are not using any inflammatory rhetoric, nor are we undertaking legal and political violence, but Dodik is, who insults citizens with genocidal rhetoric and undertakes legal and political violence against the state," said Komšić.

He says that no one should think that BiH will sit idly by, because neither "elementary dignity nor the memory of all those who gave their lives for Bosnia and Herzegovina" allows them to do so.

"Ask any international official if they would leave things to chance if someone attacked their country. Of course not, and therefore they should not expect that from us either. Dialogue can be about anything, except the survival of the state," Komšić concluded.

Komšić also welcomed the conclusions of the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the European Union, as well as the fact that this body "rejected the amendments on so-called constitutionality, which were requested to be included in the conclusions, in the context of electoral reform in BiH".

"This has once again confirmed that we are not speaking in vain when we say that the principle of so-called constitutionality of peoples is contrary to European values and European legal standards, which is also highlighted in the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, and especially in the Zornić judgment, which is perhaps precisely for this reason being pushed aside by certain political actors. In the Zornić case judgment, the European Court clearly states that there is no full democracy in BiH, but it is limited by the existence of constitutionality, and it instructs Bosnia and Herzegovina to ensure full democracy through constitutional reform. No matter how much some object to us pointing out that constitutionality is an ethnic concept that is outdated, the official policy of the EU as well as its legal system fully supports us, and we will certainly not give up on these norms, because they are democratic and civic," Komšić stated.

He says that the whole of Europe is aware of who the real creators of the crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina are.