KOVAČEVIĆ: I WILL NOT BACK COURT OF BiH DRAFT LAW UNLESS APPELLATE DIVISION IS IN SRPSKA

SARAJEVO, JULY 15 /SRNA/ - The Serb delegate in the House of Peoples of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly Radovan Kovačević said that he would not vote for the Draft Law on the Court of BiH unless the appellate division is located in Banja Luka or another place in Republika Srpska designated by Republika Srpska, stressing that SNSD will do nothing to the detriment of Republika Srpska.

Kovačević stressed that "nothing will be adopted in any final sense" today in the House of Peoples and rejected claims by opposition parties from Republika Srpska that SNSD had agreed for the seat of the appellate division to be in Sarajevo.

"We came here today to show goodwill, to show that certain things in BiH can be moved forward and that they can be moved forward by those who have so far been the only ones to show that they are capable of doing so," Kovačević said at the session of the House of Peoples.

He stressed that he would never vote in favor of a law in the second reading in which the appellate division of the Court of BiH is not located in Banja Luka or another place in Republika Srpska designated by Republika Srpska.

Kovačević added that SNSD already has a large number of amendments prepared to the draft laws on the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council /HJPC/ and the Court of BiH.

"We will certainly not do anything to the detriment of Republika Srpska, because we never forget this, unlike some others who represent Republika Srpska and the Serb people here," Kovačević stated.

He said that SNSD understands the processes and knows what it is doing, adding that the party knew "when and how Christian Schmidt would leave BiH", as well as "when, how and through which process all the harmful, unconstitutional and unjust things would disappear from the judicial system of BiH".

"We do not forget the hypocrites from the EU who called the procedures carried out by Schmidt and processes conducted without laws adopted through constitutional procedures the 'rule of law', but we will work to correct this," Kovačević pointed out.

Speaking about the discussion in the House of Peoples, Kovačević said he did not like it when some opposition colleagues referred to the "Bosniak Club", but called on other delegates to pay attention to this as well, adding that, as he said, at the previous session the head of the Bosniak Club said after the break that a meeting of eight delegates had been held "on behalf of the Bosniak Club".