Bosnia's top court on Thursday annulled several secessionist laws enacted by the country's Serb-dominated entity, actions that had triggered a political crisis in the Balkan nation.
The parliament of Republika Srpska (RS), one of two entities making up Bosnia-Herzegovina since its 1990s war, passed the laws in February after a Sarajevo court convicted Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik for failing to comply with decisions of the international envoy who oversees the peace deal that ended the war.
Dodik was sentenced to one year in prison and banned from holding political office for six years. He and the prosecutors have appealled and new hearing is to be held in June.
But Dodik initiated the laws, which include a ban on Bosnia's central police and judiciary from operating in the Serb entity.
Bosnia's central government has been strengthened over the years to the detriment of the semi-autonomous powers in Republika Srpska and the Bosniak-Croat Federation. The changes include the creation of a central police and judiciary.
Bosnia's Constitutional Court said Thursday that legislation adopted by Bosnian Serbs "annul... the sovereignty of the state of Bosnia-Herzegovina over part of its territory."
It said in a statement that only Bosnia's central parliament can decide on the return of powers to one of the regional entities.
Dodik, who as leader of Republika Srpska put the controversial laws into effect, has been wanted since March by Bosnia's central judiciary for an "attack on the constitutional order."
The Constitutional Court also annulled a Bosnian Serb law on a special register of non-governmental organizations getting international funding to designate them as foreign agents, adopted also in February.
The court said it based its decision on a European Court of Human Rights ruling which said that similar legislation adopted in Russia was contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights.
