Bosnian Serb Party Demands Top Court's Reform

The Serbian Democratic Party, which is part of the governing national coalition in Bosnia and Herzegovina, said it will present a proposal for a new law on the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The proposal will be submitted during the next session of parliament's House of the Representatives, Aleksandra Pandurevic, an SDS MP, told BIRN on Tuesday.

"This draft law is the result of a joint proposal coming from all parties in Republika Srpska", Pandurevic said, referring to the Serbian-dominated entity in Bosnia.

The proposed reform will aim to remove the three international judges who currently sit on the Constitutional Court.

Media reports say the new law will keep the number of judges in the Court at nine. However, they will be all Bosnian citizens, chosen to assure a balance of three Bosniaks, three Serbs and three Croats.

The SDA, the main Bosniak party, has called the solution unacceptable and said that its delegates will not support this proposal.

Last Monday, the SDA called on all the political parties "to respect the verdicts of the Constitutional Court.

"All planned changes to the Constitutional Court, without other reforms, will hugely impact on the balance established with the Dayton Peace Agreements," the SDA added, referring to the 1995 deal that ended the 1992-5 war in Bosnia.

Asked whether the dispute between the SDA and the SDS on the Constitutional Court might have a negative impact on the national government, Pandurevic told BIRN that "the only thing that can have a negative impact on the stability of this country is the fact that inside the Constitutional Court the two Bosniak judges are former SDA members - and they are imposing their verdicts with the help of...