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Where Bosnia and Herzegovina begins, that is where logic ends. This statement has never had more meaning than now. Namely, Milorad Dodik, the President of Republic of Srpska, was sentenced by the court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to one year in prison and a six-year ban on political activity. There would be no problem with a high-ranking political figure of a state being sentenced, if it was known what the reason was for the verdict against the political leader of Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Namely, Milorad Dodik was convicted for disrespecting the decisions of Christian Schmidt – who presents himself as a High representative of the international community in Bosnia and Herzegovina and who is supported by some countries from the West, but whose legitimacy and legality do not exist in international law.
To understand why the entire process is, to put it mildly, flawed, it is important to go back to the very beginning. On July 1, 2023, a German citizen Christian Schmidt imposed amendments to the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which placed him above the sovereign state. With these amendments, he invented the criminal offense of "Failure to implement decisions of the High Representative."
His decision was published on July 7 in the Official Gazette of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
On July 7, Dodik, as is his constitutional obligation as president, signed a decree amending the law, previously adopted by the National Assembly, that in the future the decisions of the High Representative would not be published.
And this is where we encounter the first legal contradiction and inconsistency. If Dodik signed the Decree on July 7, and the so-called ``High Representative`` decision was published in the Official Gazette on the same day, the question arises as to when it entered into force. As lawyer Anto Nobilo explained, every law in Bosnia and Herzegovina must be published in the Official Gazette and only then does it come into force, at the earliest, the following day. This means that in this case, the decision in Dodik's case was applied retroactively, which is unprecedented in practice.
The indictment against Republic of Srpska President Milorad Dodik and the acting director of the Official Gazette of Republic of Srpska, Miloš Lukić, was confirmed on September 11, 2023. The trial began on February 5, 2024, and proceeded at an unprecedented pace in the Bosnian judiciary.
Hearings were scheduled on an express basis, almost as a rule once a week. During the trial, the defense explained that the law under which the defendants were being tried was not passed by any legislative body in Bosnia and Herzegovina, that is, by any Parliament, as it should be under the country's constitutional order.
However, the Court was clearly not interested in this fact.
The defense also requested that Christian Schmidt himself, whose decisions were used to try Dodik and Lukić, testify at the trial, as well as to show the resolution by which the German was appointed High Representative. The court repeatedly rejected requests for Schmidt's testimony, which is legally absurd, given that lawfully elected officials were being tried based on his decisions. As for the resolution, it was not shown in court for one simple reason - because such a resolution does not exist, given that Russia categorically rejected Schmidt's appointment to the United Nations Security Council.
So, to clarify, the legitimately elected President of Republic of Srpska was tried in the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina for disrespecting the decisions of a foreigner whose legitimacy does not exist. In doing so, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina completely ignored the need to hear that same foreigner as a witness.
From the beginning of the trial, everything indicated that there was a desire for Dodik to distance himself from political life. Perhaps the strongest evidence supporting this is the fact that the Court tried to schedule hearings at times when Dodik was not in good health to attend them.
Ignoring doctors' recommendations following Dodik's esophageal and stomach surgery, the Court insisted on proceeding with the trial. They even sent a doctor from Sarajevo who stated that Dodik was fit to continue the trial, although he was far from it.
However, the Sarajevo doctor was soon refuted by a team of six doctors who examined Dodik and determined that he was indeed unfit to stand trial, thus at least briefly putting an end to the threat to Dodik's human rights.
After the President of Republic of Srpska recovered, the trial continued and the verdict was handed down on February 26 of this year. Dodik was sentenced to one year in prison, with a six-year ban on political activity.
The trial against Dodik and Lukić has completely exposed the story that Bosnia and Herzegovina is a sovereign country. What's more, it seems that it has never been further from that.
If Bosnia and Herzegovina is a sovereign country, how is it possible that a foreign citizen can impose any law and nullify the laws of the highest legislative bodies elected by citizens in direct elections?
And that is exactly what happened in this case. To make matters worse, because of the sick desires of a German citizen, a man who was voted for by 300,000 people was put on trial without legitimacy. And this is because of what he is obliged to do under the Constitution - we remind you, president of Republika Srpska Mr. Dodik signed the decree on Amendments to the Law that was voted by the National Assembly, the largest legislative body of the Republic of Srpska.
With his actions, Schmidt rendered meaningless the existence of all institutions throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, even the right to vote of the citizens of this country, and plunged the country into its greatest crisis since the war in the 1990s, which ended with the signing of the Dayton Agreement.
Perhaps the best description of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a country, the insane behavior of the illegitimate Schmidt, and the trial against Dodik was given by the President of neighboring Croatia, Zoran Milanović.
"Dodik is the most popular politician among Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina. That is the European way, which is totally wrong. It is not even violent. It is some kind of manipulation, a plot, an attempt to expel a democratically elected representative of the Serbian people from political life because he did not obey the order of the colonial administrator, a long-retired German politician. What century are we living in?" Milanović asked.
However, now a crisis has been created and it may escalate. That is why it is important to emphasize the cause of the crisis, which is the so-called High Representative, whose very function violates the sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Therefore, while the situation has not yet escalated, the European Union should intervene and start consultations with the official representatives of the constituent nations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in order to get out of the crisis through an agreement and to summarily abolish the so-called office of the High Representative. Like the rest of the world, decisions in Bosnia and Herzegovina should be made by legitimately elected politicians and not imposed by foreigners.
This is particularly important due to Bosnia and Herzegovina's complex nature as a multi-ethnic state with three constituent peoples and seventeen national minorities. Despite the de facto division into two entities—Republic of Srpska, with a Serb majority, and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, dominated by Bosniaks and Croats—it remains a multi-ethnic state.
"If Bosnia and Herzegovina is a sovereign country, how is it possible that a foreign citizen can impose any law and nullify the laws of the highest legislative bodies elected by citizens in direct elections?"
You are trying to join the EU and that is the sole reason the EU exists; to trample democracy and national sovereignty. So, get used to it.