Bosnian Serbs Shrug off Row Over Residency Checks

Zeljka Cvijanovic, Prime Minister of Republika Srpska, said Bosniak parties and organizations were raising unnecessary tensions over a recent decision regarding checks on residence in the entity.

On Tuesday, she denied  Bosniak claims that the decision was aimed at any specific ethnic group, or against Bosniak returnees, adding that the claim was clearly related to upcoming elections.

Cvijanovic said some people had registered fake addresses in order to gain voting rights in the entity while others needed to be checked as a possible threats to security.

“Who knows for which reasons people, instead of true ones, register fake addresses at various non-existent facilities, objects, institutions, religious communities, factories, schools and similar,” she said.

“Why would the government or any institution trust an individual who was giving fake information, including about his or her place of residence?” she added.

Cvijanovic said the decision to check people's residence in Republika Srpska was brought so that institutions did not have to wait indefinitely for a law on residence to be adopted in Bosnia's state-level parliament.

The speaker of the Republika Srpska assembly, Igor Radojicic, said it was the Bosniak parties that had not allowed such a law to be adopted, which is why the entity had decided to deal with the issue itself.

“Those disputing the validity of any decision have a regular, constitutional path through which to make a complaint,” Radojicic noted, recalling that the Republika Srpska government brought the recent decision on the basis of the conclusions of the entity parliament.

However, as laws on residence are a state-level issue, critics maintain that Republika...