January 09, 2013

The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Initiate proceedings before the Constitutional Court to change the name of the RS

Referring to the legal aspect of adversarial term Republika Srpska {RS} which in its title makes non-Serb peoples living on its territory unequal citizens of the society, although the constitutional preamble and the Constitutional Court identifies Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats as the constituent people in the entire territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Considering the fact that Article II, paragraphs 1 and 2 of the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina proclaims that BiH will ensure the highest level of internationally recognized human rights and freedoms, and that the rights and freedoms set out in the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and its protocols have direct application in BiH. Moreover the application of the ECHR has priority over other laws thus the name of RS violates the ECHR.

Considering the fact that the title of the RS entity alone created numerous prerequisites for violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms,

Considering the fact that the post-Dayton practice on the implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement made a mistake by dubbing the smaller entity as Republika Srpska,

Institute for Research of Genocide Canada {IGC} asks the constitutional competent authorities to:

Initiate proceedings before the Constitutional Court to change the name of the RS. The prefix "Srpska" must immediately be ejected since many towns in the smaller entity have been given a Serbian name. As a result the non-Serb returnees feel intimidated by the nationalist rhetoric in names of towns and the entity.

IGC requests that authorized representatives change the name of RS to a non-nationalistic name. Further IGC advises that Bosnian authorities to refer to the verdict of Sejdic and Finci in which the European Court of Human Rights ruled that there is a structural error in the Dayton Agreement. In the same manner the current name of the smaller entity is based on a mistake made in the Dayton Agreement.

Rationale

Substantive grounds for the annulment of the name Republika Srpska are numerous. Reflected in its illegal origin on the one hand, to the undisputed facts regarding the purpose of its existence on the other hand, RS has been established based on crimes of aggression and genocide. Naming the smaller entity as Republika Srpska has created problems in the implementation of the Dayton from the beginning. This has also slowed down the path towards BiH Euro-Atlantic integration. Forces that carried out the genocide against Bosnia and its people see RS as a victory. RS also represents the new Serbian government created across the Drina River, which will enable the realization of Serbia’s century-old dream of uniting into a single Serb state. This is why the proponents of Greater Serbian policy are going to great lengths to prevent BiH from becoming a functioning state.

Changing the name of smaller entity will reduce the tendency for the Serb authorities to continue to use RS as a manipulation tool for separation. Furthermore, the Serbian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina would also become more focused on making BiH a functioning state instead of waiting for Bosnia to collapse.

Professor Emir Ramic

Director of the Institute for Research of Genocide, Canada