Weber for NAP: Schmidt's arguments before the ECtHR are false, the international community is helping Dodik and Čović in dividing BiH!

(Patria) - The Democratization Policy Council today, as a third party, submitted a request to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to accept their observations in the case "Slaven Kovačević vs. BiH". On this occasion, we spoke with Bodo Weber, political analyst and senior fellow at the Democratization Policy Council.

Interview by: Rasim Belko

Patria: What did the DPC ask the European Court of Human Rights in the case “Kovačević vs. BiH”? What do your observations that you sent them mean?

Weber: You see, first of all, what we asked for was for our written intervention to be accepted by the Court procedurally, as the deadline for formally submitting such third-party interventions had passed. The President of the Court has the discretionary power to accept such interventions even after the deadline, which he did in the case of High Representative Christian Schmidt, who also applied with his intervention after the deadline.

That is precisely what we asked for procedurally. And now, in terms of content, what we submitted on ten pages is an attempt to provide political context to Mr. Schmidt's intervention. Our goal was to point out that the intervention is not neutral, but that he has arranged analyses with specific goals and directions, and without the context we wanted to provide. Our intervention offers the judges insight into the angle from which Mr. Schmidt's intervention comes and what it aims at.

Patria: What could be Schmidt's motives for getting involved at all, given that it is not part of his primary mandate?

Weber: Well, you see, generally, the High Representative has the right to apply to courts as a third party, as it is formally called amicus curiae, and to provide his view or the stance of the office he represents.

However, in this case, the content of his argumentation and the selective presentation of facts with a political background are truly problematic. It is clear that he is moving in the direction of supporting the authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina to revise, or at least partially or completely annul, the first-instance judgment of the European Court of Human Rights. The danger of this argumentation lies in the fact that if Mr. Schmidt succeeds in his endeavor, the Court could not only revise the judgment in the Kovačević case, but also, through this revision, partially or completely revise previous judgments in the Sejdić, Finci, Zornić cases…

Patria: What negative repercussions could there be if the judgment is not upheld, for example, on Montenegro, North Macedonia, Catalonia, and similar cases?

Weber: I would argue in the opposite direction first. One of Mr. Schmidt's main arguments and that of his Office in this written intervention is the claim that upholding the judgment would lead to the destabilization and endangerment of the security of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In my opinion, this is a completely false argument. This only shows how long the international community has been unwilling to act decisively.

If the judgment is upheld, contrary to Mr. Schmidt's claims, nothing will be destabilized. The ruling ethno-political elites in Bosnia and Herzegovina will, as before, block the implementation of the judgment.

On the other hand, if Mr. Schmidt succeeds in his endeavor, it would mean manipulating the judges of the European Court of Human Rights, which would be catastrophic for the rule of law and human rights in Europe. This would not only annul the first-instance judgment but would also open the door to undermining democracy and legal certainty throughout Europe.

Patria: Can we then conclude that the international community, led by Schmidt, is sacrificing the rule of law to preserve the status quo or, better said, the Dayton system in BiH?

Weber: Yes. However, even the status quo is not sustainable. We see that it has already been disrupted by the actions of the Čović-Dodik tandem, whose endeavor is aimed at the ethno-territorialization of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This would not even be preserving the status quo, but destabilization.