Today, February 26th 2025, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina issued a verdict in the trial of Milorad Dodik, president of Bosnian entity Republika Srpska and the former acting director of the same Bosnian entity Republika Srpska’s Official Gazette, Miloš Lukić.
Outcome and response Dodik
The verdict followed after more than a year of trial. Milorad Dodik, connected to separatist ambition of Bosnian entity Republika Srpska, was sentenced by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to one year imprisonment and a six-year ban on political activity. As this is a first instance verdict, an appeal is possible against this judgment. The indictment against him was based on the fact that Dodik signed two laws infringing the decision priorly made by the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Christian Schmidt. Dodik already last week announced that he would not attend the last day in Court and held a pre-organised assembly in his native town of Banja Luka. He marked the whole process as political and did not yet respond as to whether he will appeal the verdict. According to Bosnian law he can also remunerate part of the verdict by paying an amount of 52 euro per day of imprisonment (aprox.35.000 BAM) but the verdict part of political inactiveness cannot be circumcised with financial pay off. This is probably also the most painful part for the very wealthy M. Dodik.
Background
In 2023, the NSRS, the entity's parliament, passed legislation that would no longer publish the decisions of the High Representative in the entity's Official Gazzette, and would no longer implement the decisions of the High Representative in the Republika Srpska entity. Although the High Representative annulled this legislation shortly afterwards, Milorad Dodik, 'on the basis of his duty as president of the entity', decided to sign this entity legislation.
What followed was an indictment by the Public Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina in which Dodik, and the director of the Official Gazette were accused of violating Article 203a of the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Decisions of the High Representative After the NSRS passed the aforementioned legislation in 2023 and it was signed by President Dodik the High Representative, based on his mandate responded to annul this legislation. In addition, the High Representative, Mr. Schmidt, made some amendments to the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Hercegovina in the same decision, making any form of non-compliance of decisions of the High Representative with them punishable on the basis of Article 203a.These changes in the law eventually formed the legal basis for the indictment against Milorad Dodik and Milos Lucic.
The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Under immense pressure created in particular by the regime of Milorad Dodik, a lawsuit against Dodik and Lukić has been conducted before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the past 18 months.Dodik, represented by his legal team, has tried in every possible way, political, diplomatic but also not shying away from threatening the main judge. “ Saying that in her hands lies the future of Bosnia and Hercegovina “ to put pressure on the case, making the work of the court impossible, trying to evade the indictment and a possible judgment. By means of pressure from entity media under his control, but also media from Belgrade, and by having representatives of his regime create a tense atmosphere at every court hearing, Dodik tried to influence the judge and the outcome of the verdict.
Moreover, the pressure was further increased last week by threatening with ‘major consequences for Bosnia and Herzegovina’ if Milorad Dodik would be convicted. For example, there was a threat of an 'end of Bosnia and Herzegovina', the ‘proclamation of a confederation-federation with the Republic of Serbia’ within 48 hours after the judgment, and thus the secession of the entity from Bosnia and Herzegovina. This pressure was reinforced by similar threats from Belgrade by President Vučić and his state media, but also by threatening language from the Russian embassy in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It soon became clear that certain forces were trying to make this lawsuit a regional or geopolitical issue, which are in line with a further destabilization of the Western Balkans and the European continent and cannot be seen separately from Great State aspirations from the East.
In addition this morning just hours before the verdict was made public, it became clear that some 300 Hungarian special forces law enforcements agents has come to the region of entity of Republika Srpska “to perform a unified exercise”. Dodik has warm connections with Orban, as well as with Putin accordingly and in alignment with Vučić’s regime and now his friends have come to show support.
The ‘All-Serb’ Declaration
Vučić arrived in Banja Luka in the evening, after The National Security Council of Serbia held an emergency session chaired by the Serbian President, were he addressed the crowd in front of the Palace of the Republic. During his speech he stated that Serbia and he personally will stand behind Republika Srpska no matter the decision that they will make. The reason for this being “because we belong to one people” and “we came to a Declaration and we cannot, and will not act differently”.
The Serbian president refers to Declaration on the Protection of National and Political Rights and the Common Future of the Serbian people adopted by the ‘All-Serb’ Assembly in June 2024. The Assembly was conceptualized as a supranational body bringing together Serb political, religious, and academic representatives from Serbia and Bosnian Entity of Republika Srpska. Scholars and politicians from Bosnia have warned that the institutional backing of the expansionist ideological framework are posing a threat to regional stability and compromising the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but very few in the EU were willing to listen. We now can see the Declaration being brought into practice. Who is crying wolf now?
The way forward
It is unclear how the EU institutions shall and if they ultimately will react to this verdict. Awkwardly enough Brussels does not seem to worry too much about Putin’s long arm in the Balkans. Banja Luka is some odd 40 kms from the Croatian border hence the port of the European Union. Vučić’s nationalist regime has been the main reason of the sparkling student protests for the last couple of months which has been supported by lawyers, teachers, medical workers and basically the whole Serbian community, but the EU seems silent about that topic as well. What we are probably witnessing in the Balkans at the moment is the people saying it has been enough, everybody wants to move on from the war narrative of the bloody 90’s but no one on the global stage seems interested?
With Trump in power in the United States the question can become even more frustrating for the local community and young people wanting “to make their country great again” are basically being forced to leave by corrupt war mongers clinging on to power with their last breath of air. Let’s wait and see, because the coming weeks and months can bring some interesting or (again) painful times for the already tormented Balkan caught in corrupt hands of autocrats. Europe is, as stated already by JD Vance in Munich, bound to think about its own Security policy of their external borders and enforce them by themselves as well. Hence this little issue of Balkan nationalist dictators embracing each other with their buddies Putin and Orban is not a small detail Europe has the luxury to omission whilst creating their Secuity policy for the near future is the humble opinion of the authors…
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