Plenary session of the Constitutional Court of BiH, concessions on the Drina in focus

(Patria) - The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina has scheduled a plenary session for today, December 2, and tomorrow, December 3, at which five cases for constitutionality review and the same number of appeals from legal and natural persons should be considered.

As provided for by the agenda, the plenary session should, among other things, consider the case for constitutionality review (U 16-20), i.e., the Request of 24 members of the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH (PABiH) for resolving a dispute between the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the entity Republika Srpska, arising in connection with the granting of concessions.

This concerns the request of BiH parliamentarians to annul the decision of the RS Government on granting a concession for the construction of hydroelectric plants on the Drina, since, as stated in the request, decisions regarding state property can only be made at the level of BiH.

This request/case was considered at the 122nd plenary session, in mid-July, when the Constitutional Court issued a partial decision on admissibility and merits, and ordered the BiH Concession Commission, as a joint concession commission, to resolve the disputed issues arising in connection with the granting of concessions within a maximum period of three months.

According to that decision, the Joint Commission was supposed to take a position on the mentioned dispute by October 28, otherwise, everything returns to the Constitutional Court of BiH.

The issues contained in the mentioned request were brought to the fore after the RS Government decided, through a negotiation procedure, to grant Serbia concessions for the construction and use of hydroelectric plants (HE) "Buk Bijela", "Foča", and "Paunci" on the Drina River.

The RS authorities thereby invoked the Law on Inland Navigation of the RS, whose provisions treat all rivers in that Bosnian-Herzegovinian entity, including the Drina, as "internal waters of the RS", which the Constitutional Court of BiH declared unconstitutional by a decision from February 2020.