CONTESTING PEOPLE’S RIGHT TO ELECT THEIR REPRESENTATIVE – SABOTAGE OF DAYTON

BELGRADE, AUGUST 22 /SRNA/ – Former Foreign Minister of FR Yugoslavia Vladislav Jovanović told SRNA that the announced referendum in Republika Srpska is a logical step in democracy, and that anyone who contests the people's right to elect their representative "is committing a subversion against the Dayton Agreement".

Jovanović emphasized that if the legitimacy of an elected official, specifically the President of Republika Srpska, is contested through judicial or administrative channels, this automatically means contesting the political will of the people, of the voters. "In such a case, when there is a clash between a judicial or political decision and the legitimately expressed will of the people, the dispute is resolved by checking the people’s will, through a referendum to be held," said Jovanović. He noted that the will of the people should be the decisive factor, and that the "political-judicial challengers of the people's will" must yield before the decision of the people, if they have any democratic scruples at all. "And if, for them, this is merely an offensive form of `liberating` themselves from the President of Republika Srpska because they disagree with his political views, then this is a subversive action that is incompatible even with the basic concept of law, and even less with the original provisions of the Dayton Agreement, which envisaged the right of the people on both sides to elect their representatives," Jovanović stressed. The Serbian diplomat underlined that no one, whether in the executive or judicial authorities, has the right to contest the people’s right to elect their representatives in accordance with the original provisions of the Dayton Agreement. "If they do, then they are committing a sabotage against the Dayton Agreement, against the will of the people. And that is the beginning and the end of the definition of democracy," Jovanović said. He reminded that all power in a democracy stems from the will of the people, not from the will of the executive bodies of government, whether it is the government or the courts. "So, to me this /the decision on the referendum/ is entirely appropriate, and if there is still some preserved sense of legal awareness among those making decisions in the West, they would have to acknowledge that fact and bow before the will of the people, and not before administrative or judicial rulings," Jovanović emphasized.