IT'S ALL ABOUT STATE PROPERTY: Instead of prison for subverting the constitutional order, Dodik comes to the negotiating table!

Written by: Amina Čorbo-Zećo @aminacorbozeco

While reactions from international factors, and fewer domestic ones, to the conclusions of the National Assembly of Republika Srpska, which are once again unconstitutional, continue, and as we enter a crisis due to the 'technical amendments to the Election Law,' only the naive believe that this is the real reason for Dodik's rampage.

Since the early 2000s, one person in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been highlighting the real reasons behind Dodik's subversion of the constitutional order. Countless interviews have been conducted with him, he is Muharem Cero, and he always repeats – it's all about state property!

And, Bosnia and Herzegovina has been unable to pass this law for a long time, specifically since 2007, with obstruction in its parliamentary progress skillfully orchestrated by the strategic partners HDZ and SNSD.

The proposed law has not moved further from the parliamentary Constitutional Commission. Any action by Christian Schmidt that could bring relief has been absent.

Incendiary rhetoric has therefore continued, and Schmidt, through certain impositions that are not crucial for BiH, gives political weapons into Dodik's hands. The significant step to finally cut through persistently fails to materialize.

Slowly, over the years, we have entered a projected, politically controlled chaos with the hallmark of a frozen conflict.

The strategy of buying time in such a state has, over time, left the de facto situation validated. Can Bosnia and Herzegovina, as it is, make a significant step in negotiations with the European Union? Those negotiations we boast about so much, while we surely sink to the bottom. Therefore, the story of the unresolved issue of state property can be viewed from a constitutional-legal, political, and interest-based perspective.

“The constitutional-legal aspect has only been touched upon but not resolved by the decision of the Constitutional Court of BiH in case U-1/11,” Cero will say.

That decision recognized the titleholder, ownership of state property, but also recognized that only the state, not sub-state arrangements (entities), has not only the right but also the obligation to resolve the issue of managing, disposing of, and using state property.

“Subsequently, a ban on disposing of property was imposed (by the High Representative) and transferring ownership of state property to any other level or third party, a Commission was established to adopt a set of laws at the state level, but it did not go beyond that,” Cero explains for years, but few listen.

In both Republika Srpska and the Federation, state property is being 'carved up' through various legal machinations. Rezoning of land, excluding the BiH Attorney's Office from processes, destroying forests, blocking the Constitutional Court of BiH, disregarding court decisions… all of this leads BiH into a difficult situation, where, it seems, the validation of the de facto state will leave the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina without property.

And all this under the guise of appeasing Dodik, and even the 'Dodiks' in the Federation are not averse to this idea. That is why Schmidt very simply says – agree on state property. Imagine, they couldn't agree on technical amendments to the Election Law, let alone agree on state property!

The European Union still invites them to the table for negotiations. We don't need to guess twice what Dodik, and also Dragan Čović, will demand to 'calm down.'

Above BiH, like a sword of Damocles, hangs the 'status quo,' ready to cut everything off. It is not unclear to anyone that as long as state identity and continuity exist, so does the identity and continuity of property rights, because the BiH Constitution of 1995 stipulates that the state of RBiH continues its legal existence, but under a changed name, as the state of BiH.

This is being talked about less and less, and subverting the constitutional order has become a weapon with which, instead of going to prison, one sits at the negotiating table!