Mitrović is gone, but the illegal Rulebook remains: Will the Prosecutor's Office investigate his unconstitutional actions?

Written by: Amina Čorbo-Zećo

---

Vojin Mitrović has resigned from the position of Minister of Communications and Transport in the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Mitrović confirmed this information.

As he said, the position of the SNSD president Milorad Dodik is that elected and appointed officials can only hold one position.

"President Dodik said that the other day, and he repeated it today. I acted according to that decision and made my mandate available. I received the mandate of a member of parliament in the NSRS, and I took the oath on Tuesday."

We recall that the Ministry of Transport and Communications of Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted a new Rulebook on vehicle registration in BiH, for which Mitrović will be remembered, and which was adopted outside of any procedure. It is suspected that everything was done to favor the company Prointer, close to the son of Milorad Dodik.

Related text

ARBITRARINESS Mitrović, by adopting the Rulebook on vehicle registration, violated both the Constitution of BiH and the FBiH!

Mitrović received a 90-day deadline from the Administrative Inspectorate at the Ministry of Justice of BiH to harmonize the Rulebook, which came into force on August 1.

Interestingly, the preamble of the Rulebook, published in the Official Gazette of BiH, states that it is adopted by the Minister of Communications and Transport of BiH in cooperation with the bodies responsible for internal affairs, even though that same minister, without explanation, ignored most of the objections and suggestions that the ministries of internal affairs submitted on the draft Rulebook. Only the MUP of Posavina Canton stated that it had no objections.

Certain provisions of the currently valid rulebook also enable the transfer of authority to technical inspection stations and expert institutions, and all money from the collection of stickers would go to a private company that would be selected through a public tender and with which the Ministry would sign a contract.

From IDDEEA, months before the adoption of the Rulebook, they warned that it was illegal and would not be applicable, but also that the introduction of the RFID code was economically unfeasible.

However, Mitrović stepped outside his area of competence, because he could not implement the adoption of the disputed Rulebook through an act he had adopted!

He was obliged by Article 215 of the Law on Road Traffic Safety of BiH to prescribe in more detail the registration procedure, as well as the appearance and content of documents related to registration, and in Article 219 it is prescribed that the minister will prescribe in more detail the performance of technical inspections, records of forms, and conditions for technical inspection stations. Outside this legal authorization, the Rulebook, for example, prescribes the entrusting of various tasks to expert institutions, the competence of institutions for certain tasks, the validity of documents and processes, etc.

Such an expansion of the subject matter regulated by the Rulebook went beyond the legal framework, and consequently the Rulebook is illegal.

Furthermore, he violated the Constitution of BiH and the Constitution of the FBiH. Namely, Article 3 of the disputed Rulebook determines who is responsible for vehicle registration. From this process, the Federation of BiH was completely excluded.

The question now is whether he will also be criminally liable for what he did?

Because his actions are contrary to the Constitution of BiH, which does not provide for the possibility that any authority at the BiH level can allocate competencies to lower levels of government. Furthermore, it is contrary to the Constitution of the FBiH, which establishes the competencies of the FBiH for communication infrastructure.