PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY HAS NO JURISDICTION TO DISCUSS PROPERTY ISSUES

BANJA LUKA, NOVEMBER 30 /SRNA/ – The Constitution of BiH contains no provision granting any institution at the state level the authority to regulate, through legislative or any other normative activity, the issue of state property or property rights, not even the Parliamentary Assembly or the Constitutional Court of BiH, professor of law Ljubinko Mitrović told SRNA.

Mitrović emphasized that different interpretations, which are now very much present, especially in the Federation of BiH, are merely interpretations derived from other provisions of the BiH Constitution and represent attempts at unconstitutional rewriting of the Constitution. “It is simply impossible, under the Constitution of BiH, for anyone - including the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH - to be granted new competencies or to be given authority over matters that it does not possess according to the Constitution, as the highest legal act,” Mitrović said, advising Serb representatives to keep this in mind. He noted that an extremely important piece of information from the House of Representatives of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly went almost unnoticed; namely, that all Serb representatives refused to discuss, under urgent and shortened procedure, a certain draft law on state property. He adds that, unfortunately, such unity is rare. “The demonstrated unity of Serbs is encouraging and restores hope to all of us who follow political developments in Republika Srpska and BiH. I am completely certain that this entirely unconstitutional project will meet the same fate in the continuation of the process, i.e. in the so-called regular procedure,” Mitrović stated. The House of Representatives of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly will review the Bill on State Property in regular procedure, since at the session held on Thursday, November 27, there was no entity majority to discuss it under urgent or shortened procedure. The proposers are representatives Jasmin Emrić, Šemsudin Mehmedović, Aida Baručija, and Elvis Hodžić.