As a reaction to the article which was published in the newspaper Daily Avaz of 23 July 1997, under the title “Entire Judiciary Run by Croats?”, the Office of the High Representative would like to make the following comments:
- The constituent session of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina took place on 23 May 1997, and its first regular plenary session will be held on 29 and 30 July 1997, when the Court will discuss the Rules of Procedure, elaborated by a working group consisting of 4 judges for adoption by the full Court. Therefore, the statement in the article that the Court “will finally be constituted on 29 -30 July ” does not correspond to the facts.
- The President and Vice-Presidents of the Constitutional Court will be elected in
accordance with the procedure laid down in the Court’s Rules on the Procedure as soon as they will have been adopted.. The Office of the High Representative likes to emphasise that it does not support the candidacy of any particular judge, let alone for nationality reasons. Furthermore, the Office of the High Representative refutes the information that the international judges on the BH Constitutional Court would insist upon a Bosniak judge being elected President, as the article seems to suggest.
- Furthermore, OHR would like to stress that the subtitle of the article ” Serbs not
interested in the work of the Court” is false and tendentious, as it may aim at the
creation of unnecessary tensions among the judges so as to effect the well-functioning of the Court.