BUBIĆ FILED APPEAL AGAINST DECISION OF CEC: CRIMINAL OFFENSE AND DECISION OF CEC - INSTRUMENT OF POLITICAL PRESSURE

BANJA LUKA, AUGUST 12 /SRNA/ - Goran Bubić, the lawyer of the President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik, told SRNA that today, on behalf of the legal team, as an attorney, he filed an appeal to the Court of BiH against the decision of the Central Election Commission /CEC/ of BiH from August 6 on the termination of the mandate of the President of Republika Srpska.

Lawyer Bubić emphasized that in this case the criminal law and consequently the CEC's decision serve as instruments of political pressure.

"Voters are not naïve, the truth is in the ballot box, so actions that nullify the will of citizens and do not support the rule of law should be attacked with all available legal means," said Bubić.

SRNA publishes the written statement of lawyer Bubić in its entirety:

"In the appeal, the possibility of retroactive application of the termination of the mandate is primarily contested, because the termination of the mandate in the decision was determined on June 12, and the decision was made on August 6.

The nature of the constitutional mandate of the President of Republika Srpska, in this case expected constitutional activity in the period from June 12 to August 4, as the day of the delivery of the second-instance verdict /52 days in total/, caused a series of legal consequences in Republika Srpska when it comes to general documents, like decrees on promulgation of the law, as well as individual acts from the competence of the President of the Republic. What of it?

The enforceability of the decision of the criminal court was completely ignored, in favor of legal validity, which is silent on the enacting terms /and explanation/ of the decision of the CEC of BiH. The provision of Article 115 of the Criminal Law of BiH, which binds the consequences to finality, is correct en abstracto, but it cannot be used to justify that a certain individual act, such as the contested decision, is applied retroactively, because this violates the basic standards of the rule of law.

The second appeal argument is that the permanent member of the CEC BiH, Vanja Bjelica-Prutina, who is in a civil dispute with the appellant, could not participate in the work of the CEC, because she should have been excluded ex lege. According to her lawsuit, civil proceedings are being conducted before the General Court in Sokolac, and the court issued a first-instance verdict on October 12, 2024, which rejected the claim, and Vanja Bjelica-Prutina filed an appeal against the first-instance verdict.

It is reasonable to conclude that due to the current litigation, there is a hostile attitude of the appointee towards the appellant, so it is unclear why this member of the CEC of BiH did not recuse herself from voting in terms of Articles 35 and 36 of the Law on Administrative Procedure of BiH.

The relationship between the member of the CEC and the appellant is obviously of a private-legal nature and corresponds to the purpose and goal of the provision of Article 35 Point 6 of the Law on Administrative Procedure of BiH. We emphasized that the civil proceedings following the lawsuit of a member of the CEC against the appellant are precisely related to the circumstances related to the election process in 2022, and the role of Vanja Bjelica-Prutina in making the decision to recount the votes for the position of the President of Republika Srpska, which turned out to be unnecessary because the results of the new vote count organized by the CEC coincided with the earlier results of the counting in the voting committees.

The civil procedure is absolutely relevant for the exclusion of the appointed member of the CEC from the process of making the decision, which is challenged by the appeal, for the reason that the civil procedure was not initiated by the appellant, but the procedure was initiated against the will of the appellant.

It means that the existing civil dispute is a real reason for exemption, produced by the will of a CEC member, and not faked by the appellant, to create the appearance of a reason for exemption. Finally, the reason for the exemption is more convincing due to the fact that the member of the CEC did not succeed with the claim in the first-instance proceedings, and it is logical to conclude that she is dissatisfied because of that.

In connection with the procedure of the member of the CEC, it seems likely that non-compliance with the principle of impartiality is the modus operandi in the proceedings against Milorad Dodik.

This bias is evident in the activities of the illegitimate Christian Schmidt, who imposes a criminal offense from Article 203a of the Criminal Law of BiH, aimed at the appellant. Then at the conference in Vienna, on November 10, 2023, Schmidt declares:

`Can you have an active and effective political structure that decides, makes a unanimous decision and that people like this Milorad Dodik, who is considered to be sometimes very close to Mr. /Sergey/ Lavrov, sit at the table like us? I can't.`

A foreign citizen, de jure clearly illegitimate, acts personally and vindictively against the appellant, because the Russian Federation, nor the Republic of China, as permanent members of the UN Security Council, do not recognize Schmidt as a legitimate high representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is not recognized by the Republika Srpska either because the UN Security Council did not confirm him as a high representative at the session of July 22, 2021.

The above is a prelude to the conviction and deprivation of the mandate of /President of the Republic/ Milorad Dodik. All this does not support the rule of law, but represents a foreigner's personal confrontation with the appellant - a disobedient constitutional political representative of the people, who, with legal arguments, and not arbitrarily, does not recognize him as a high representative in BiH.

Regarding /im/partiality, we reminded that in criminal proceedings, the indictment against the appellant is confirmed by the judge for the preliminary hearing, whose rights the appellant decided in his capacity as a Serb member of the BiH Presidency, based on the provisions of Article V.3.b) of the Constitution of BiH.

The appellant objected in writing to the selection of a judge at the Permanent Criminal Court in The Hague, and the judge was not selected. This fact is indisputable.

Likewise, acting as a single judge, as a former prosecutor in the BiH Prosecutor's Office, together with several other prosecutors, she requested in writing that the appellant be criminally prosecuted, due to his alleged announcements of the destruction of the institutions of BiH. This is not in dispute either, and it follows from this fact that the first-instance judge, due to her earlier attitude towards the appellant, had some kind of prejudice about the guilt of the appellant.

Finally, we have the behavior of the permanent member of the CEC of BiH, Vanja Bjelica-Prutina, who is in a personal, private legal dispute with the appellant and is obviously not satisfied with the first-instance court decision on the lawsuit against the appellant, so she cannot act impartially in relation to the appellant, when she acts as a member of the CEC of BiH, in this case, against the appellant.

We asked whether is it not possible in BiH that judges and officials who are not personally involved in the relationship with Mr. Milorad Dodik decide on the rights and obligations of the constitutionally elected president of Republika Srpska and persons who have a hostile attitude towards him do not act.

Finally, we pointed out in the appeal that the termination of the mandate according to the contested decision is contrary to the Constitution of the Republic of Srpska, which is harmonized with the Constitution of BiH and in accordance to the opinion of the Venice Commission.

The Constitution of the Republika Srpska clearly prescribes the manner of termination of the mandate of the President of the Republic in the provision of Article 87 Paragraph 1, which reads: "The mandate of the President of the Republic ends before the time for which he was elected in case of resignation or impeachment".

It means that the contested individual act determined the termination of the mandate of the President of the Republic in a manner that is contrary to the Constitution of the Republika Srpska.

We reminded in the appeal that it is legally unacceptable to incriminate the actions of the constitutional president of Republika Srpska according to the Constitution of the Republic, as follows from the factual description of the condemning part of the judgment of the Court of BiH from February 26.

In general, who can commit a criminal offense if one undisputedly uses the constitutional authority and according to the factual description in the verdict? A criminal offense can be committed by abuse of authority, by exceeding authority /action/, but also by failure to exercise authority /inaction/, but never by `exercising authority`. Moreover - by `constitutional authority`.

In this case, the criminal law and the consequent decision of the CEC serve as instruments of political pressure. Voters are not naïve, the truth is in the ballot box, so actions that nullify the will of citizens and do not support the rule of law should be attacked with all available legal means.

It is neither ethical nor legal to substitute like this the will of the majority electorate, which insists on the freedom of the people and citizens, not subservience to a foreigner and the accompanying power centers for the purpose of achieving political goals that have no basis in the legal order of BiH, viewed as a whole."