The High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Christian Schmidt, has decided to suspend the payment of money from the budget at all levels in BiH to finance the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), led by the President of Republika Srpska (RS), Milorad Dodik, and the political party United Srpska, which is a coalition partner of Dodik's party in the RS entity.
Speaking in Sarajevo, Schmidt announced today that the suspension applies to budget money at all levels in BiH, emphasizing that anti-Dayton activity has consequences and that he will reconsider his decision after it stops.
"All funds for these two parties, at all levels of government, will be suspended and redirected to a special account in the Central Bank of BiH. This decision supports the efforts of BiH institutions to counter the current flagrant attacks by the ruling RS coalition, led by SNSD and United Srpska, on the fundamental principles of the Dayton Agreement and the constitutional and legal order of BiH," said Schmidt.
He spoke a day after members of the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) were not allowed into the Administrative Center building in East Sarajevo by police officers from the RS Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP), during a meeting between the RS President and SNSD leaders with representatives of the City of East Sarajevo.
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SIPA confirmed to RFE/RL that members of the agency wanted to act on the order of the Court of BiH, and that no force was used.
Dodik, along with the President of the RS Parliament and Government, Nenad Stevandić, and Radovan Višković, are suspected of attacking the constitutional order, in an investigation conducted by the BiH Prosecutor's Office since the end of last year.
A central arrest warrant was issued for them in March because they failed to respond to a summons for questioning. This means that each of the 16 police agencies at all levels of government in BiH should have taken them into custody, which has not been done to date and they are performing their duties regularly.
Also, at the end of February, Dodik was sentenced in the first instance before the Court of BiH to a year in prison and a six-year ban on political activity for disrespecting the decisions of the High Representative and signing a decree promulgating laws that Schmidt had previously annulled.
The High Representative of the international community for BiH has the authority, confirmed by both the Constitutional Court of BiH and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, to impose laws and dismiss officials.
He also amended the Criminal Code of BiH and made his decisions binding.
Schmidt also annulled the RS laws that attempted to prevent the implementation of decisions of the Constitutional Court of BiH and the High Representative on the territory of RS, which had previously annulled laws of the entity parliament, such as the one on registering state property in the entity or the law on holidays.
The day after the first-instance verdict against Dodik was pronounced, the RS National Assembly adopted an unconstitutional law on February 27th banning the work of the Court and Prosecutor's Office of BiH, the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA), and the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC) of BiH.
The RS government claims that it is not giving up on this law, even though the Constitutional Court of BiH temporarily halted its implementation on March 7th.
In mid-March, the RS National Assembly adopted a draft of the new RS Constitution, by which the authorities plan to define the entity as a "state of the Serbian people", give it the right to self-determination, establish its own army, and abolish the Council of Peoples and vice-presidents from the other two constituent peoples.
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