FBiH Government Admits Ordinance is Unconstitutional

By: Prof. Dr. Dženan Đonlagić, President of the DF Caucus in the House of Representatives of the FBiH Parliament

Regarding the latest proposal for the Law on Amendments to the Law on Electric Energy in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was placed on the agenda of an extraordinary session of the House of Representatives of the FBiH Parliament for October 23, 2015, through an inexplicably urgent procedure, the crippled FBiH Government, led by Prime Minister Novalić, has now admitted on paper what the Democratic Front has been pointing out for the past few months: that the controversial Ordinance (Official Gazette of FBiH No. 44/15) on exercising authority in companies with state capital under the jurisdiction of FBiH, adopted by outvoting the ministers of the Democratic Front in the Government, is actually unconstitutional.

It sounds shocking that the Government wrote this in the material that entered parliamentary procedure for item 3 of the agenda of the 10th extraordinary session scheduled for Friday.

 

In the Proposal for Amendments to the aforementioned law, in the section titled "Reasons for Amending the Law," where Article 116, Paragraph (9) of the Law is to be deleted, it states, quote: "Authority based on state capital in existing electric power companies, and in companies formed after the restructuring of the electric power sector, will be exercised by the Ministry." Therefore, they want to delete this paragraph, and the reasons for deletion state, quote: "so that it is not in contradiction with the new Ordinance..."

Download the complete material HERE.

This shows that the 20-year concept of managing public enterprises is more important than the constitutional system and the legal hierarchy of acts in the Federation of BiH. It is unprecedented for a law, a higher legal act than an ordinance, to now be amended to align with an ordinance, and all through an urgent procedure!

The logical question arises: why didn't the FBiH Government first proceed with amending the Law before adopting the new Ordinance, which would have been the correct procedure and which the DF would have supported, and then adopt the new Ordinance?

The answer is obvious! Now, by amending the aforementioned Law, in order to align it with the Ordinance, it is actually revealed that someone's intention and desire from the very beginning was to remove the Democratic Front from the Government of the Federation of BiH. Prime Minister Fadil Novalić realized this desire by placing the adoption of the controversial new Ordinance on the Government's agenda.