New Council of Ministers resumes old battle: Law on OSA to be harmonised with BiH Constitutional Court decision

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - The request of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina to consider the Proposal for 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 on 14 February.

This is an old story, but there was no will to resolve it during the previous term. Namely, after the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina declared the provisions of the Law on the Intelligence-Security Agency (OSA) relating to secret data collection, which require judicial authorisation, unconstitutional, the amendments to this law should have been adopted by the deputies in the BiH Parliament. The whole matter 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 invalidate the existing provisions of the Law, which could lead to a legal vacuum. However, this never happened.

The Constitutional Court reacted upon an appeal by the Deputy Chairperson of the House of Representatives, Borjana Krišto, and the new law stipulates that a surveillance order must include the type of communication intended to be intercepted, the type of information, records, documents to be collected, and the authorisations 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 for extension of measures. Upon a written reasoned proposal from the OSA General Director, a judge may extend the validity of the order for additional periods of 30 days each, provided that the approved measures may last for a total maximum of 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.