Analysis of the crisis with the help of disinformation: The Prosecutor’s Office and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina are not unconstitutional institutions

Photo: NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Flickr

On March 14, 2025, an anonymous bilingual web portal Eagle Eye Explore, published a column by political scientist Nenad Kecmanovic titled “Three decades that locusts have devoured in Bosnia”. The text is a reflection on the political crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the early months of 2025, as well as Kecmanovic’s view of the last three decades in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in which he claims the “Dayton” Constitution has been undermined from the beginning, while Milorad Dodik is saving it with his actions. The text, however, presents several factually unsupported claims regarding the constitutional arrangement of BiH. It states the following:

Milorad Dodik, with his presidential signature on the decision of the National Assembly of Republika Srpska (NSRS) published in the Official Gazette, has returned Republika Srpska to the original Dayton Agreement, specifically Annex 4. On its territory, nothing will be valid that is not in accordance with the Constitution of BiH. This marks the end of the dictatorship of the protectorate and the Bosniak political elite in Srpska.  (…)  Dodik has long announced this move, seeking the return of usurped entity powers, the abolition of imposed laws and unconstitutional institutions. The protectorate, on the other hand, responded with “new necessary reforms”, “the spirit of Dayton”, “cheaper and more efficient systemic solutions”, the usurpation of entity powers, imposition of laws and institutions, and pressures and blackmail with new tools, such as the Bonn powers, the Constitutional Court of BiH, where foreigners decide, the invented Prosecutor’s Office, and the Court of BiH.

In addition to the claims about the “original Dayton” and the “unconstitutional” and “invented” Prosecutor’s Office and Court of BiH, Kecmanovic claims that the High Representative Christian Schmidt is illegitimate, and refers to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a “special military operation”. He also states that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was recently thrown out of the White House because he tried to say that the “Russian special operation” was not caused by him, but by the Americans moving missile launchers closer to the Russian border. He further claims the following:

Radovan Karadzic fell for Holbrooke’s promise that the Hague Court would not prosecute him if he resigned, and then they hunted him like a beast for years. In short, that is a society that should not be trusted. Srpska has said its piece, and now it is up to them to find a solution that will not cause even worse consequences. Kissinger said we could win in Bosnia, but we won’t solve anything. Perhaps in this confusion, we should return to basic questions. Why is the existence of BiH, according to the stance of the “international community”, i.e. the united West, considered inevitable, unavoidable, and inviolable? For Bosniaks, this stance is understandable. They have territorial claims on Republika Srpska, calling it a temporarily occupied territory, a genocidal creation, but today, the divided West, at least its European part, wants a unitary BiH at any cost and without explanation. Although all great powers have guaranteed Dayton with their signatures, they have long been looking for a way to abolish it: Dayton plus, Dayton 2, the Spirit of Dayton, reform of the Dayton Constitution, transitioning from Dayton to the Brussels track, etc.

In the long text, he also advocates the now-established nationalist theses, from the claim that the “collective West” is trying to establish dominance in this region through a confrontation with the Serbs to the idea that the people in this region have always hated each other and have only simulated coexistence out of necessity. Kecmanovic’s column was published on the same day on the Radio and Television of the Republic of Srpska (RTRS), and it was shared by several other web portals.

What is the “Original Dayton?”

After being sentenced on February 26, 2025, in the first instance for failing to respect and apply the decisions of the High Representative at the Court of BiH, the President of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, initiated the introduction of laws seen as undermining the constitutional order of the country. On February 27, the National Assembly of Republika Srpska (NSRS) adopted laws prohibiting the work of the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH, the Court of BiH, the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (VSTV), and the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) on the territory of RS. Dodik signed decrees on these laws on March 5, 2025, and they were published in the Official Gazette of RS on the same day (link). It is true that the Constitution of BiH, in Annex 4 of the Dayton Peace Agreement, does not mention the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH, the Court of BiH, the VSTV, and SIPA. However, Article 3 of the Constitution of BiH states that, except in matters already stipulated by the Constitution, Bosnia and Herzegovina “assumes responsibility in other matters agreed upon by the entities; those established in Annexes 5 to 8 of the General Framework Agreement; or those that are vital for preserving the sovereignty, territorial integrity, political independence, and international subjectivity of Bosnia and Herzegovina”. For these purposes, new institutions may be established according to the “original” Dayton Agreement. These listed institutions were established through the adoption of laws by the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina (PSBiH), with the consent of representatives from RS  (1, 2, 3). Therefore, even though they are not mentioned in the Constitution of BiH, these institutions are not “unconstitutional” or “invented”. They were established by a law passed in Parliament in a manner prescribed by the Constitution. These laws were not imposed, nor were they “usurping powers” from the entities. They were voted for by representatives from Republika Srpska. The insinuation that the NSRS has the constitutional authority to “abolish” these institutions, i.e. ban them from operating within the entity, is absurd. Lower levels of government, such as the entity parliament, do not have the legal authority to decide on laws passed by higher levels of government, such as the state parliament, or the OHR (link).

“Illegitimate” Schmidt and the “Special Military Operation”

The questioning of the legitimacy of the High Representative of the international community in BiH, Christian Schmidt, has been present in the public sphere since he took office in 2021, primarily from officials from Republika Srpska. Raskrinkavanje has written about this in analyses available here and here. As explained in the analysis from January 2022, the stance on Schmidt as “illegitimate” or “illegally appointed” is based on the fact that his appointment was not confirmed by the UN Security Council. While it is true that there was no confirmation from the Security Council, this does not make Schmidt illegal because that confirmation is not a condition for his appointment to the position. An analysis by our partner fact-checking web portal Istinomjer, published on June 7, 2021, explained the following:

However, the lack of a UN Security Council confirmation is not unprecedented, as evidenced by the case in 2005 when Christian Schwarz-Schilling was appointed as the High Representative. At that time, outgoing High Representative Paddy Ashdown informed the UN Secretary-General in writing that Schwarz-Schilling would take up the position on January 31, 2006, and that he had been informed “that this information should be forwarded to the Security Council for consideration and possible agreement”. Moreover, there is no defined procedure for the selection of the High Representative, and even the first incumbent, Carl Bildt, was not appointed by the UN Security Council. (…) Thus, although there have been cases in the past where the Security Council commented on the selection of the High Representative, there is no legal foundation for this practice, and thus the legitimacy of Christian Schmidt remains in question.

Christian Schmidt was appointed as the High Representative on May 27, 2021, by the Steering Board of the Peace Implementation Council, and he assumed the position from his predecessor Valentin Inzko, on August 1 of the same year. In one paragraph of his column, Kecmanovic notes that with Donald Trump’s arrival as President of the United States and the “warming” of relations with Russia, the term “Russian aggression” is no longer used in the context of the war in Ukraine, insinuating that this term was a reflection of ideological or political moments rather than a factual description. Thus, he uses the propaganda euphemism for the war in Ukraine, originating from the Kremlin, the “special military operation”. However, the facts are clear. Russia began its open military invasion of Ukrainian territory, a internationally recognized and sovereign state, on February 24, 2022, thus violating Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which requires UN member states to refrain from “the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state”. The Kremlin has used the term “special military operation” since the start of the war, attempting to minimize its illegal actions, claiming it was in self-defense. This claim is unfounded since Ukraine did not launch an armed attack on Russia or any other UN member state. Russia’s actions literally represent a “textbook example” of military aggression, according to the UN definition. Regarding the heated debate between Zelensky, Trump, and Vance, which resulted in the Ukrainian president being escorted out of a meeting at the White House on February 28, 2025, Zelensky did not claim that the U.S. was to blame for the Russian invasion due to “moving missile systems closer to the Russian border”, nor is it clear how his words could be interpreted that way. His criticism of the U.S. and other Western countries came after Vance stated that it was time to resolve the conflict through diplomacy and that the U.S. would focus more on this approach. Zelensky emphasized that Western powers had been focused on diplomacy since 2014, even mediating the signing of a ceasefire in 2019, which Putin flagrantly violated, suggesting that he had lost faith in “diplomacy” with Western mediation and that, as a result, he was seeking concrete military aid and security guarantees (link)

Fabricated Guarantees to Karadzic

The claim that U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke promised Radovan Karadzic immunity if he withdrew from public and political life was made by Karadzic himself before his trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. According to an article by Balkan Insight published on October 28, 2022, Karadzic claimed that he and Holbrooke signed a document in 1996 containing such provisions, and that he had honored his part of the agreement but did not receive immunity from trial. However, Holbrooke denied ever making such an agreement, and contrary to Karadzic’s claims, no such document has ever been found. In other words, there is absolutely no evidence that the agreement Karadzic mentions ever existed, especially not in written form, explains Balkan Insight. There is also no evidence that Western countries ever openly advocated for the abolition of entities within Bosnia and Herzegovina, or for a “unitary state arrangement” (1, 2). Aside from spreading factually incorrect claims, Kecmanovic, in his column, also presents the now-traditional nationalist thesis about centuries-old hatred and ethnonational conflicts, which is supposedly meant to “explain” the actions of the leadership of Republika Srpska in attempting to limit the work of state institutions and return to the “original Dayton”. This is a very popular, yet highly simplified narrative used to explain the wars in Yugoslavia. However, while the rise of nationalism was one of the factors contributing to the breakup of Yugoslavia, it was far from the only or even the main reason. Reducing the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and all of its causes to the assumption that Bosnia and Herzegovina was a “small SFRY”, in which people were merely “simulating coexistence”, and that the Dayton Agreement gave them what they wanted by separating them along ethnic lines, represents an overly simplistic and banal explanation of the complex situation the country found itself in from 1992 to 1995. In any case, presenting national tensions, conflicts, and animosities as an inevitable fate beyond the control of the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Western Balkans is not only bizarre but also malicious. The insinuation that coexistence among members of different nations and religions in Bosnia and Herzegovina is impossible negates a large part of the country’s history in an attempt to provide a rational explanation for Dodik’s political moves. Therefore, claims that the Prosecutor’s Office and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina are unconstitutional and that Christian Schmidt is an illegitimate High Representative are considered a manipulation of the facts. We give the same rating to the claim that Radovan Karadzic received a guarantee from Richard Holbrooke that he would not be prosecuted by the Hague Tribunal if he resigned. Karadzic’s defense argued that such a document was signed, but there is no evidence to support this claim. (Author: Nerma Šehović, Raskrinkavanje.ba)