DECISION OF THE PARTIAL CONSTITUTIONAL COURT OF BiH - AN ATTEMPT TO STRIP THE ORIGINAL COMPETENCIES OF THE REPUBLIKA SRPSKA MINISTRY OF INTERIOR

BANJA LUKA, MARCH 27 /SRNA/ – The Minister of Interior of Republika Srpska Željko Budimir, stated this evening that declaring three articles of the Law on Police and Internal Affairs of Republika Srpska unconstitutional represents an abuse through which the partial Constitutional Court of BiH is attempting to transfer the original competencies of the Republika Srpska Ministry of Interior to the Agency for Identification Documents, Registers and Data Exchange /IDDEEA/.

"Two of the contested articles of the Law relate to electronic signatures and the original competencies of the Republika Srpska Ministry of Interior, which they are trying to transfer to an agency whose task is to technically maintain, store, and archive data and information," Budimir told SRNA.

He emphasized that IDDEEA is not the owner of the data, nor is this in accordance with the laws on electronic signatures of Republika Srpska and BiH.

"In that context, the applicable regulations have been completely disregarded," Budimir said.

He added that even the international cooperation of the Republika Srpska Ministry of Interior, which has existed for years and has never been disputed before, is now being challenged.

"They are deliberately placing that international cooperation within the domain of foreign affairs and claiming that the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies is responsible for it, although it is only competent for coordination at the level of BiH, not within agencies in BiH," Budimir pointed out.

He stressed that this is yet another abuse of the Constitutional Court of BiH and that it undermines the constitutional system of the country.

"Laws are being interpreted arbitrarily in a way that suits them, and this is another attempt at continuous unitarization and centralization of BiH," Budimir concluded.