Warrant issued for Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik for violation of constitutional order News
Medija centar Beograd, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Warrant issued for Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik for violation of constitutional order

Bosnia’s state-level prosecutor issued an arrest warrant on Wednesday for the Republika Srpska (RS) entity President Milorad Dodik and two other top Bosnian Serb officials for violating the country’s “constitutional order”.

The Prosecutor’s Office issued an arrest warrant for RS President Dodik, Prime Minister Radovan Višković and President of the National Assembly of the RS Srpska Nenad Stevandić. The prosecutors requested assistance from the judicial police and the Ministry of Interior of Republika Srpska. This order follows legislation passed by the autonomous Serb region, which bars Bosnian state-level police and judiciary from its territory.

In response, Dodik who rejected the warrant’s validity,  refused to return to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina for investigation. Dodik portrayed the arrest order as a purely political decision. He accused the prosecutors of working with Muslim movements to destabilize Republika Srpska. In addition, Dodik claimed he would initiate procedures to amend the Constitution of Republika Srpska, as according to him, RS should not be influenced by foreign centers of power.  

Dodik asserted that he does not intend to violate the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH Constitution). Nevertheless, the TASS news agency reported that Dodik called for assistance from Russia,  requesting the state to veto the extension of the European peacekeeping mission for Bosnia in the UN Security Council in November. In light of the escalating constitutional crisis, the EU peacekeeping force, EUFOR, said on Tuesday that it had begun deploying reserve forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina to maintain stability and security.

On February 27, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina sentenced Dodik for failure to comply with the decisions of the High Representative Christian Schmidt, which finds that Dodik’s actions violated both the BiH Constitution and the Dayton Peace Agreement of 1995. Shortly after the trial, the parliamentary majority in RS adopted four laws under an urgent procedure, including the controversial separatist law and the “Foreign Agents Law”, presumably targeting NGOs and independent media.

The Balkan Civil Society Development Network worried that the amendments were a form of revenge for Dodik’s verdict, forcing all state-level officials, judicial office holders, and other employees of BiH institutions to blindly obey the decisions of the ruling majority in the RS. Additionally, the “Foreign Agents Law” would create conditions for the systematic persecution of dissenting voices, silencing opposition within associations and the media.

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