Bosnia and Herzegovina¶
The Bosnian cases show a tie abroad that is part of the constitutional order being recast as foreign domination. Enforcing the referee’s decisions through domestic criminal law asserts the constitution, and its opponents present that enforcement as an attack on the entity and its people, so obeying the tie becomes the disloyal act. The vulnerability is a constitution that half the country’s politicians can describe as foreign rule, enforced by courts they can describe the same way.
The clerk’s briefs¶
From the clerks, for the Patrician’s eyes
Worth a look. The entity’s voters are offered loyalty to their leaders as loyalty to their community, and those who accept the state’s institutions risk being cast as the referee’s men. Political networks across the region learn that a conviction can cost a person without costing the party. If the referee’s decisions can be defied with only a change of face at the top, the international guarantee of the peace weakens for everyone who relies on it; a firmer response from the Union, or a shift among the entity’s voters, could reverse that.
February 2026: The office changes hands¶
On 13 February 2026 the Central Election Commission confirmed the results of the early election for President of Republika Srpska, won by Sinisa Karan, the candidate of Dodik’s party, the SNSD. The clerks note that the man was removed from the office and his party kept it.
June 2025: The verdict stands¶
On 12 June 2025, after a public session, the Appellate Division of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina upheld the first-instance verdict against Milorad Dodik; the written judgment was sent out on 1 August. On 6 August the Central Electoral Commission stripped him of the presidency of Republika Srpska and opened the procedure for snap elections. Dodik called the decision “yet another sh*tshow from Sarajevo” and said “Surrender is not an option.” The clerks note that eight weeks passed between the judgment and the removal, and that the removal was answered with a refusal to leave.
February 2025: The envoy’s decisions¶
On 26 February 2025 the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina sentenced Milorad Dodik, president of Republika Srpska, to one year in prison and a six-year ban from that office for “non-compliance with the decisions of the High Representative of the international community in the country”. The case arose from a 2023 law of the entity’s assembly saying the High Representative’s decisions would not be published in its Official Gazette, which the High Representative annulled, after which Dodik signed a decree enacting the annulled laws. He and his allies equated his trial with a trial against the entity. The clerks note that the international tie was here the law, and defying it the crime.