Police Officers' Appeals Board Has Its Hands Full, Ćulum Demanded Listings and Payments Then Pensioned Off Whoever He Could

The Police Officers' Appeals Board can finally start working, and its members have numerous appeals before them, mostly concerning retirement decisions.

Several appeals have been filed by employees of the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA), and upon the order of SIPA Director Darko Ćulum, information on work experience and payment of outstanding contributions was requested from other police agencies. Although the legal procedure requires police officers to apply personally, SIPA has acted illegally in several cases, which led to the appeals being filed. Thus, SIPA insisted that the Ministries of Internal Affairs or FUP provide listings and make payments for police officers in order to retire them.

In the past three months, the majority of those retired from SIPA are Bosniaks, and SIPA is manipulating the number of police officers due for retirement. At the same time, Bosniaks are left with only two positions at the rank of Chief Inspector, and Ćulum does not want to announce internal competitions for promotions. The shocking fact is that Ćulum requested work experience data even for those police officers who are currently working in other police agencies.

At the same time, no one is mentioning Ćulum's pension, and according to informed sources, he has 49 years of service. Ćulum's mandate expired in July 2024, and to this day, the Council of Ministers of BiH has not decided to vote for any of the candidates from the ranking list or to repeat the competition procedure, so pensioner Ćulum is ruling the roost in a once respectable police agency. Even the parties of the 'Trojka' (Trio) have stopped mentioning Ćulum, although he was absent from SIPA for four months during 2025, leaving the agency at the invitation of Milorad Dodik and moving to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Republika Srpska. When Dodik, Radovan Višković, and Nenad Stevandić appeared before the Court of BiH in early July 2025, Ćulum promptly withdrew his resignation and returned to head SIPA. Since then, no one has mentioned his dismissal. Nor has the Prosecutor's Office of BiH commented on the report for an attack on the constitutional order filed against Ćulum by state deputies Jasmin Emrić and Šemsudin Mehmedović. However, just as an order was issued not to conduct an investigation for an attack on the constitutional order in the case of Dodik and others, it is likely that the same will happen with this report against Ćulum.

The members of the Police Officers' Appeals Board are: Bakir Dautbašić, law graduate, Secretary of the Ministry of Security of BiH, Chairman of the Board; Ljubiša Pandurević, law graduate, rank of Chief Inspector, Head of the Financial Intelligence Department at the State Investigation and Protection Agency, Deputy Chairman; Bojan Petrović, Bachelor of General Law, rank of Senior Inspector, Commander at the Border Police of BiH Doljani unit, member; Igor Kajtez, law graduate, rank of Senior Inspector, Commander at the Border Police of BiH Gradiška unit, member; Alen Mujkanović, criminology graduate, rank of Senior Inspector, Commander of the VIP Delegation Protection Unit at the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies of BiH, member; Boris Jukić, law graduate, Head of the Human Resources and General Affairs Department at the Ministry of Justice of BiH, member; and Alija Bazdulj, law graduate, expert advisor in citizenship matters at the Ministry of Civil Affairs of BiH, member.

The Police Officers' Appeals Board is competent to make decisions on appeals filed by police officers against decisions made by BiH police bodies regarding the status of a police officer, or in cases of a police body's failure to make a decision regarding the status of a police officer.

The Police Officers' Appeals Board decides on an appeal within 30 days of receiving the appeal, except for an appeal against a suspension decision, which it decides on within three days. Given that the Board has not been in session since December 16, appeals are still pending, and an appeal suspends the retirement decision for police officers.

The decisions of the Police Officers' Appeals Board are final and must be implemented without delay, although they may be subject to judicial review in accordance with the laws of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and are delivered within eight days of their adoption.

This year, 467 police officers are retiring from three state police agencies, with the largest number from the Border Police of BiH, totaling 281 police officers. The fewest are retiring from SIPA, 53 (although this number changes, at least according to the information provided by SIPA), with some already retired, and 133 from DKPT.

The Council of Ministers of BiH recently adopted a plan for the admission of cadets to these agencies during 2026, but given the longest training process for the Border Police, 200 new police officers will not start their employment until 2028.

(A. Vrabac)