Can Delegates Align the OSA Law with the Decision of the Constitutional Court of BiH

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - The request of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina to consider the Proposal for the Law on Amendments to the Law on the Intelligence-Security Agency of BiH under urgent procedure from 4 May 2018 will be before the delegates of the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH today. However, the question is whether any decision will be adopted today if the elected representatives from the RS do not vote, i.e., if they respect the decision of Milorad Dodik and the RS authorities.

This is an old story, but there was neither the will nor the majority to resolve it in the previous term. Namely, after the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina declared the provisions of the Law on the Intelligence-Security Agency (OSA), which relate to secret data collection requiring judicial authorization, unconstitutional, the amendments to this law should have been adopted by the deputies in the BiH Parliament. The whole story has been pending for two years.

Earlier, the Council of Ministers of BiH also requested that these amendments be considered under urgent legislative procedure, bearing in mind the fact that the Constitutional Court could put the existing provisions of the Law out of force, which could lead to a legal vacuum. However, this never happened.

The Constitutional Court reacted upon an appeal by the Deputy Chair of the House of Representatives, Borjana Krišto, and the new law stipulates that a wiretapping order must contain the type of communication intended to be intercepted, the type of information, records of documents to be collected, and the authorizations to be applied for that purpose.

The order may be approved for a period of up to 60 days, and in case of a need to extend the measures. Upon a written reasoned proposal by the General Director of OSA, a judge may extend the validity of the order for additional periods of 30 days each, provided that the approved measures may last a total of no more than 48 months.

The Constitutional Court of BiH in 2017 accepted Krišto's appeal and declared three provisions of Article 78 of the Law on the Intelligence-Security Agency unconstitutional.