Registration of Prospective Military Property to the State Begins, RS Does Not Respect the Decision of the Constitutional Court of BiH

In the RTRS Dnevnik 2 on Saturday a report was aired on the registration of prospective military property to the state of BiH, which the Ministry of Defense of BiH started this week, calling it a „unilateral attempt by Minister Zekerijah Osmić to deceive the public at the end of his mandate“, reports the BiH news agency Patria.

As stated in the report, from the RS they claim that military property located on the territory of the RS will not be registered to BiH, and the Deputy Minister of Defense Živko Marjanac says that Osmić is doing "his own marketing" in this way. But the real background of the opposition from the RS is that this brings BiH closer to the NATO alliance.

From the Ministry of Defense of BiH, they stated that they have prepared documentation for the process of registering 63 prospective military locations to the state of BiH, thereby opening the door to MAP (Membership Action Plan), as the final step on the path to the NATO alliance.

- The registration process is based on legal and technical arguments and is founded on legal solutions, bearing in mind the Decision of the Constitutional Court of BiH, which confirmed the obligation to register property to BiH in accordance with the Law on Defense of BiH, the Decision of the Presidency on 63 prospective military locations, and the Agreement on Succession, for whose ratification both houses of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH gave consent – stated the MoD BiH.

The Ministry of Defense of BiH is taking all legal measures for the process of registering military locations in the Republic of Srpska as well, and for the military location in Han Pijesak, the jurisdiction of the Court of BiH has been irrefutably established by legal proceedings in the legal matter concerning the dispute over ownership of this location.

Slobodan Radulj, the chief legal representative of the RS for RTRS, said that „property cannot be registered until this issue is legally resolved“. From the Legal Representative Office of BiH, as stated in the report, they claim there are pressures from individuals from BiH institutions as well as the international community. Mlađen Mandić, deputy legal representative of BiH, said that the Collegium's position is that without a legal basis there is no registration.

However, the Ministry of Defense sent documentation for 14 locations in the FBiH to the Legal Representative Office of BiH with a request for registration to the state of BiH. The first set of documentation for registration was sent to the Legal Representative Office of BiH as early as 21.11. 2014.

Nikola Kovačević, a member of the Commission for State Property, said that the Commission held „about 100 sessions, we could not reach an agreement.“

In the coming days, the MoD BiH will submit documentation to the Legal Representative Office of BiH for 4 locations from the RS for registration to the state of BiH, the statement says.