KARAN: SELF-DETERMINATION IN PRACTICE - 35 YEARS OF NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF REPUBLIKA SRPSKA

BANJA LUKA, OCTOBER 21 /SRNA/ - As we celebrate the 35th anniversary of the National Assembly of Republika Srpska, we mark a historic moment in which the Serb people in BiH cut through a political deadlock, rejected humiliation in terms of their status, and institutionally translated their sovereign will into the reality of statehood, Republika Srpska President Siniša Karan said.

"The establishment of the Assembly of the Serb People in BiH was a historic act of self-defense, a constitutional response to outvoting, and an expression of the political will of a constituent people which, faced with threats to its existential, political, identity-based and national being, decided to take its future into its own hands," Karan stressed in an opinion column for the Republika Srpska Media System - SRNA.

He said that the right to self-determination was not an outdated phrase for the Serb people. "It is our past, our present and our constitutional future. Those who do not understand this understand neither the law nor history, and least of all the Serb people and Republika Srpska," Karan stated.

SRNA publishes the Republika Srpska President's column in its entirety:


RIGHT THAT IS NOT SOUGHT, BUT EXERCISED

The right of peoples to self-determination is an inalienable, natural right enshrined in numerous international instruments. Among the earliest such international instruments was the resolution of the London Congress in 1896, while the Charter of the UN, adopted in 1945, gave legal recognition to the right to self-determination.

In 1976, the UN General Assembly and Security Council adopted a covenant on economic, social, political and other rights which, in its very first article, establishes the right of peoples to self-determination.

Even the 1974 Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia /SFRY/, in its Basic Principles, explicitly recognized the right of every people to self-determination, thereby confirming the importance of this right within the constitutional order of the then common state.

The Serb people affirmed this right in their founding acts, incorporated it into the foundations of Republika Srpska and, through its institutions, ensured that it had a firm legal basis.

An indelible and indisputable legal and political sequence began on October 24, 1991, with the establishment of the Assembly of the Serb People as an institutional response to illegal moves and an attempt to exclude Serbs from the constitutional order of the then Socialist Republic of BiH. It continued in November of the same year with the plebiscite of the Serb people, the most direct and unambiguous form of popular and political expression on remaining in the common state. On January 9, 1992, the adoption of the Declaration on the Proclamation of the Republic of the Serb People of BiH marked the birth of our state. Its constitutional and legal system was completed with the adoption of the Constitution and the Constitutional Law on February 28, while its final and recognizable name was established by the Declaration of August 12, 1992: Republika Srpska.

The Dayton Agreement in 1995 merely confirmed an already existing statehood, since Republika Srpska was a state with full capacity during the 1992-1995 period.

Thus, Republika Srpska entered Dayton as an established, functioning state, with its own Constitution, territory, people, and legislative, executive and judicial branches of government.

The Dayton Peace Agreement merely granted Republika Srpska international legal recognition and placed it within the constitutional framework of the complex state community of BiH, as one of its two equal entities.


NATIONAL ASSEMBLY: FORTRESS OF SERB FREEDOM

The National Assembly of Republika Srpska, established as an expression of the sovereignty and will of the people, is one of the fundamental pillars of Serb statehood in BiH. It is an institution in which the will of the people is translated into the most important acts protecting the rights and interests of the Serb people.

Its significance therefore goes far beyond the usual role of a parliament, as it is also the guardian of the constitutional order of both Republika Srpska and BiH.

In 1991, the Serb people chose the path of freedom, political self-determination and institutional organization. The strong and resolute messages, as well as the historic acts adopted by the National Assembly over the past decades, testify to its perseverance along that path.

Despite numerous pressures, challenges to its legitimacy and constant attempts to strip it of its powers and weaken it, the National Assembly of Republika Srpska remains what it was on October 24, 1991 - a fortress of Serb freedom, an unwavering bulwark defending the rights, dignity and survival of the Serb people.