Republika Srpska government withdraws controversial law on protection of constitutional order

The day before the session of the National Assembly of Republika Srpska (NARS), the ruling majority in RS withdrew the controversial Law on the Protection of the Constitutional Order of RS from parliamentary procedure.

"As a representative of the proposer, I inform the public that we are withdrawing the Law on the Protection of the Constitutional Order from the procedure. We expected support from the opposition, since they also requested the prosecution of some criminal offenses, but since they did not understand the essence, we invite them to write and propose a new law together," wrote Srđan Mazalica, a member of parliament from the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), on the social network X.

The proposed law envisaged the establishment of a Special Prosecutor's Office and a Special Court of the RS for the protection of the constitutional order of the Republika Srpska and other state bodies in this entity of BiH.

The Special Prosecutor's Office and the Special Court would be responsible for numerous criminal offenses, including attacks on the constitutional order of the RS, endangering territorial integrity, sabotage, and espionage.

According to this law, the Service for the Protection of the Constitutional Order of the RS was to be established, which would perform the tasks of "collecting data and preventing activities aimed at undermining or destroying the constitutional order and security of the RS, researching, collecting, processing and analyzing intelligence data and information of importance to the security of the RS."

The director of this service would be appointed by the President of the RS, with a five-year mandate.

According to this law, a chief special prosecutor would be appointed, who would be appointed by the National Assembly of the RS, and would have the authority to "make a decision to take over the case from the competent district prosecutor's office at any time until the indictment is filed."

Opposition parties today strongly condemned the referral of the bill to parliamentary procedure, assessing that the adoption of the bill would introduce "instantaneous judgment" in the RS, as well as "the spirit of Siberian camps and Goli Otok".