POPOVIĆ: PUBLIC TO SPEAK UP ABOUT DRAFT OF THE CONSTITUTION AND GIVE SUGGESTIONS

BANJA LUKA, MARCH 29 /SRNA/ - The President of the Working Group for the Drafting of the New Constitution of Republika Srpska, Vitomir Popović, expects that the public debate on the Draft Constitution will include the wider community, which will make certain proposals, which will then be forwarded to the Committee of the National Assembly of Srpska for Constitutional Affairs, which will determine the final version of this act.

Popović reminded that the Constitution of Republika Srpska was adopted on February 28, 1992, and that since then it has undergone a large number of amendments, some of which were imposed by the former high representative in BiH, Wolfgang Petritsch.

"Such impositions are inappropriate in the constitutional and legal practice of countries in the world. Some amendments were brought by us. It is not usual to go for the so-called purified text of the constitution, especially considering the fact that we need to regulate certain issues related to the return of competences that were taken away by the decisions of high representatives or under their pressure," Popović told SRNA.

He added that one of them is the issue of certain powers of the President of the Republic as the supreme commander of the armed forces of Srpska.

"We believe that defense should be under the jurisdiction of Republika Srpska, as it was," Popović pointed out.

He added that the new constitution also regulates the issues of the capital city of Srpska.

"Banja Luka is already the de facto capital, it is the seat of the main republican institutions, and the capital would be Pale, because that is where Republika Srpska was born," Popović said.

Public hearings on the Draft Constitution of Republika Srpska will begin next week, and the first will be held in East Sarajevo on Monday, March 31.

The National Assembly of Republika Srpska passed a decision on the adoption of the Draft Constitution of Republika Srpska at a special session on March 13.

Adoption of a new constitution of Republika Srpska was proposed in order to protect its constitutional position, considering that in the past 29 years, the legal system of BiH has been collapsed and redrawn, and that there has been a significant expansion of the jurisdiction of BiH by unconstitutional transfer from the entities.