Following the decision of the Appellate Division of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to uphold the first-instance verdict against the president of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, sharp reactions are coming from Republika Srpska and the region.
The Court of BiH explained the second-instance verdict against the president of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, on its official website.
The verdict is an attack on Republika Srpska; I do not recognize the criminal offense imposed by Christian Schmidt, said the president of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, at a press conference commenting on the second-instance verdict of the Court of BiH.
“Nothing unexpected. Everything we had previously agreed upon is true. According to the Dayton Agreement and the Constitution of BiH, the Constitutional Court of BiH does not exist,” Dodik said.
He noted that Christian Schmidt had caused a lot of disorder in BiH.
By the decision of the Appellate Panel of the Court of BiH, the acting director of the Official Gazette of Republika Srpska, Miloš Lukić, was acquitted, which he confirmed for RTRS.
The Serb member of the BiH Presidency, Željka Cvijanović, stated, following the confirmation of the first-instance verdict against the president of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, that the entire process was politically staged and rigged.
“This whole process was politically staged and rigged. We had a foreigner acting without authority, trying to change the law, and as a result, a judiciary that accepted the imposition of laws by a foreigner, ignoring what is written in the Constitution. The outcome of this decision is political,” emphasized Cvijanović.
The lawyer for the president of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, Goran Bubić, said that they expected justice from the Court of BiH, but instead received injustice.
“Around 11 a.m., we received confirmation that our appeal was rejected. We expected justice; we received injustice. The legal team of the president of Republika Srpska will seek an appeal before the Court of BiH. We will request a temporary measure to suspend the court’s decision, which is also a prerequisite for addressing the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg,” Bubić said.
The verdict against the president of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, is another trap showing that they do not care about peace in BiH and that they are trying to provoke conflict through it, said the president of the National Assembly of Republika Srpska, Nenad Stevandić.
“They won’t catch us unprepared. Until now, they have tried to misuse our concern to preserve peace and maintain interethnic and all other relations in BiH,” Stevandić said.
He emphasized that Republika Srpska has its own institutions that will determine how to respond.
“We will keep fighting. Republika Srpska will prevail,” said Radovan Kovačević, delegate in the Serb Club of the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH.
Kovačević, who is also the spokesperson of SNSD, wrote this on the X platform, reacting to the decision of the Appellate Division of the Court of BiH, which upheld the first-instance verdict against the president of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik.
“After hearing the decision from our lawyer, the only thing I can say is that BiH has missed yet another opportunity today—perhaps the last—to even consider being a place where Serbs are allowed to live as they wish,” said Lukić, commenting on the second-instance verdict against the president of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik.
The head of the SNSD caucus in the National Assembly of Republika Srpska, Srđan Mazalica, emphasized that the verdict of the Court of BiH against the president of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, is full of procedural errors and legal violations, and that the case “must go to Strasbourg.”
“Regardless of Schmidt’s legitimacy or the legality of him enacting laws, the verdict against Dodik is full of procedural errors and violations of the Criminal Procedure Code,” Mazalica stated.
Source: RTRS
