Municipal Court Postpones Registration of New Sarajevo Airport Management in Commercial Register

(Patria) - The Municipal Court in Sarajevo has postponed the request to register the new management of the Public Enterprise Sarajevo International Airport in the commercial register, including the registration of acting director Amadeo Mandić.

For reminder, at the beginning of December, the Assembly of the Public Enterprise Sarajevo International Airport, upon the proposal of the Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, confirmed the appointment of Mandić as acting director of this enterprise.

However, according to the Airport's Statute, the Company Assembly does not have the authority to appoint or confirm an acting director, as these powers, according to regulations, belong to the Supervisory Board.

Members of the Supervisory Board, who should have carried out the legal procedure for appointing the Airport's management, are currently unable to act because their positions have been prohibited by court orders, leaving the legitimacy of the decision to appoint Mandić open to question.

"Regarding your inquiry, we inform you that the procedure is ongoing, awaiting action from the proposer in accordance with the Law on Registration of Business Entities in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina," the Municipal Court responded to the inquiry from Istraga whether it is true that the Court rejected the registration of the new management of the Public Enterprise Sarajevo International Airport in the commercial register on January 14.

This situation arose after POSKOK initiated an investigation into the amendments to the Statute of Sarajevo Airport and the personnel decisions that preceded the changes in management.

It all began at the end of 2024, when the Government of the Federation dismissed the then management and appointed Sanin Ramezić as acting director, along with Amadeo Mandić and Slobodan Kadijević as executive directors.

What was supposed to be a temporary solution escalated into significantly deeper institutional problems after the Airport's Supervisory Board adopted amendments to the Statute, which substantially changed the conditions for the election of directors and executive directors.

The new acts no longer required specific experience in air traffic or specialized qualifications closely related to aviation for the election of directors and management.

Although these changes were presented as an adaptation to modern practices, they soon raised numerous public doubts, especially since they were made shortly before the expiration of the temporary management's term and the announcement of the competition for permanent positions.

These very statutory amendments became the subject of an investigation by the Department for Organized Crime of the Federal Prosecutor's Office (POSKOK).

During the autumn of 2025, the Federal Police Administration conducted searches at the premises of Sarajevo Airport and seized documentation related to management decisions and personnel appointments.

POSKOK's investigation focuses on the suspicion that internal acts were adapted to suit pre-determined candidates, thereby violating the principle of legal and transparent appointments.

The culmination of the entire case occurred at the beginning of December 2025, when the Supreme Court of the FBiH, acting on the proposal of POSKOK, issued temporary measures prohibiting Sanin Ramezić and three members of the Supervisory Board.

These measures prohibited them from performing their duties and accessing the company, which effectively blocked the work of the Airport's key management bodies. The consequence was an institutional vacuum in which the body responsible for appointing management could no longer make decisions.

In such circumstances, the Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina gave its consent for Amadeo Mandić to be appointed as the new acting director, despite the fact that the Supervisory Board is the sole authority responsible for appointing and dismissing the company's management.

"Everything is legal until declared illegal," stated the Federal Minister of Justice Vedran Škobić to Faktor last month, adding that he himself voted for Mandić's appointment.

Nevertheless, while awaiting a court decision on whether the election of the new Airport management is (il)legal, it is already completely clear that by ignoring clear statutory provisions and bypassing the Supervisory Board as the sole competent body for appointing management, Nermin Nikšić's Government has knowingly created a crisis in one of the most strategically important public enterprises.

The Municipal Court's decision to postpone the registration of the new management in the commercial register sends a clear message that the legal basis for the mentioned appointments is indeed questionable and that any subsequent decision by the management that is not legally constituted can be called into question or declared void.

In the registration procedure, the court does not delve into the motives or reasons why the Government resorted to urgent solutions. Its task is solely to determine whether the decision on appointment was made by the body that has explicit authority to do so.

In this case, that is the Supervisory Board of the Public Enterprise, not the Company Assembly, nor the Government of the FBiH. Since the Supervisory Board did not make the decision because its work is blocked by court orders, the court has no basis to proceed with the registration of the new management.

It is particularly significant that the court returns responsibility to the "proposer," i.e., the company itself. This indirectly confirms that the Public Enterprise Sarajevo International Airport does not have a legally constituted body that can submit a proper registration request, which further confirms the existence of an institutional vacuum.

And that vacuum was created by a series of moves by the Government of the FBiH, which, instead of first establishing a functional Supervisory Board, decided to solve the problem through "shortcuts."