YouSaid · the spoken record

Cvijanović

lines on the record

21

first

2023-05-10

most recent

2023-05-10

sittings or episodes

1

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un-security-council

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1. “As the most important concrete steps in that direction, the Council should make clear once and for all that the High Representative does not possess the despotic authority to rule Bosnia and Herzegovina by decree and confirm that our institutions at all levels of administration are entitled to make decisions in accordance with our Constitution. I am convinced that Bosnia and Herzegovina can have a successful future if the Dayton Accords are faithfully implemented with the support of the Security Council. And I will add that I am trying to introduce a touch of reality in this debate today in the Council. Bosnia and Herzegovina is not a fairy tale and is never going to be a fairy tale, but it can become a decent country if our Constitution is respected and honoured by all parties inside and outside Bosnia and Herzegovina.”

   2023-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9319 (2023) · source

2. “And if Council members will read the latest report from the Republika Srpska, they will see that the Republika Srpska cannot be accused of being some renegade State simply because it calls upon foreign officials to respect international law and the constitutional democratic rights of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s citizens. I again thank the members of the Council for their concern about the future of my country. I ask the Council to support Bosnia and Herzegovina by advocating the full implementation of the Dayton Accords as written and condemn foreign meddling in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which undermines the Accords, violates the rule of law, corrupts our judicial system and hinders political cooperation within Bosnia and Herzegovina.”

   2023-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9319 (2023) · source

3. “The hypocrisy of such allegations, coming from some who actively subvert the Constitution agreed in Dayton, is astonishing. If members of the Security Council will read the latest report of the Office of the High Representative (S/2023/318) in that context, then they may understand that, to many of us in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the report reads like that of a colonial viceroy to the home office, complaining that the locals, who are too ignorant and uncivilized to rule themselves in a constitutional democracy, do not respect and appreciate the benevolent despotism of the viceroy’s overlordship.”

   2023-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9319 (2023) · source

4. “As for the Republika Srpska, its official policy remains what it has always been: the Republika Srpska is committed to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and to the constitutional order established in the Dayton Accords, and it is committed to peace above all. But it is not ready to accept illegal, despotic rule by high representatives and unconstitutional decisions of the Constitutional Court, nor to have its constitutional, democratic rights trampled and be treated as a colonial possession of certain foreign Powers. Somehow the Republika Srpska has ended up in a sort of Orwellian position where complaints about the distortion and degradation of the Dayton Constitution are said to be anti-Dayton.”

   2023-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9319 (2023) · source

5. “When a court ignores judicial propriety and the constitutional limits of its own authority and issues decisions that are ultra vires, that court naturally squanders the respect of the citizens and the other branches of Government. And when such decisions are the product of a voting bloc of foreign judges subject to outside influences, it is clear why such decisions lack credibility. It is in the context of that total usurpation of the democratic process in Bosnia and Herzegovina by outside Powers and the corruption of our judiciary that so-called secessionist rhetoric and other political expressions of extreme frustration in Bosnia and Herzegovina must be understood.”

   2023-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9319 (2023) · source

6. “Remarkably, the Office of the High Representative never addresses the reasons why the Court’s decisions are met with scepticism, which is due to the corruption of the judicial process by the interference and influence of the Office of the High Representative itself, along with that of certain foreign Powers, as well as the effective control of the Court by its three foreign judges. Those foreign judges, who were meant to be a part of the Court for only the first five years of its operation, do not live in Bosnia and Herzegovina, have no educational background in the laws of our country, do not speak the local languages and issue contorted rulings that many agree read like political acts meant to please certain foreign Powers rather than soundly reasoned legal determinations.”

   2023-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9319 (2023) · source

7. “Unfortunately, some of the greatest distortions of the constitutional structure of Bosnia and Herzegovina have been caused by the very institution established to uphold it — the Bosnia and Herzegovina Constitutional Court. The Office of the High Representative frequently complains that the Court’s rulings are not being respected by the entities. Тhe same Office of the High Representative has hypocritically decreed that its own edicts are totally untouchable by the rulings of any court in Bosnia and Herzegovina.”

   2023-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9319 (2023) · source

8. “And it must also be acknowledged by the members of the Council that the rule of law needs to be honoured not just by local leaders in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also by those foreign officials who have long been ignoring or even actively subverting the Bosnia and Herzegovina Constitution agreed in Dayton, who have been routinely and cavalierly violating the prohibition against foreign diplomats meddling in local politics of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and who have been influencing judicial cases that should be decided only in accordance with the Constitution and proper judicial integrity. This points to a second important threat to the constitutional order in Bosnia and Herzegovina.”

   2023-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9319 (2023) · source

9. “The truth of that statement must, I think, be obvious to all members of the Council, but it is perhaps particularly clear to the many countries represented in this Chamber that have proud histories of freeing themselves from despotic imperial rule by certain foreign Powers.”

   2023-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9319 (2023) · source

10. “Uncertainty regarding public property, caused solely by Office of the High Representative meddling, now hinders cooperation and progress in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as the issue has been seized upon by those seeking to further centralize Bosnia and Herzegovina in contravention of the Constitution. If Bosnia and Herzegovina is ever to be sovereign, independent, stable, functional and prosperous, then it needs to be governed not by unelected foreigners issuing despotic decrees according to their own preferences and prejudices, but by its own Constitution and its own citizens, in accordance with democratic principles and the rule of law.”

    2023-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9319 (2023) · source

11. “Initially it was widely accepted that the Constitution left public property to the entities, an understanding used as the basis for various Bosnia and Herzegovina laws still in force and upheld by the Constitutional Court. Even statements made or supported by influential foreign officials in 2008 also demonstrated acknowledgement of entity ownership of public property. The issue was never in dispute until former High Representative Paddy Ashdown, with his typical imperial attitude, intervened to create the entire controversy. Years later, in 2012, when the parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina agreed to a resolution of the public property issue, the deal was quashed by then High Representative Valentin Inzko simply because it was not driven by the Office of the High Representative and crafted to his liking.”

    2023-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9319 (2023) · source

12. “The High Representative’s dictatorial rule is not just patently illegal, but it is also very counterproductive, as has been attested in recent years by former High Representatives. The Office of the High Representative’s looming presence and constant attempts to micromanage Bosnia and Herzegovina suffocate the democratic process and hinder the unfettered internal dialogue and reconciliation essential to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s future success. Indeed, the Office of the High Representative’s ill-advised interference more often creates rather than solves problems, as demonstrated by the way it has generated and inflamed the controversy regarding the ownership of public property.”

    2023-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9319 (2023) · source

13. “Their arrogant, dismissive and disdainful attitude towards legally elected and broadly supported domestic officials and institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina is, to say the least, unhelpful and becomes particularly absurd when those officials sharply criticize the entities for proposing laws mirroring those that have long been in place in those diplomats’ own home countries. Remarkably, those officials, who work to usurp the constitutional authority of democratically elected officials in Bosnia and Herzegovina on a daily basis, complain when local officials do not bend their knee and honour their illegal assertions of authority, and so we are accused of a failure to communicate.”

    2023-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9319 (2023) · source

14. “His latest edicts purport to amend the criminal codes of both of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s entities, yet again make a mockery of the rule of law and represent just the latest brazen usurpation of the democratic rights of the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina to rule themselves, rights that the Council has pledged to protect. Furthermore, shortly before my travels to participate in this meeting, Mr. Schmidt, whose appointment the Council failed to approve, threatened that if I had the nerve to question his legitimacy before the Council, I would receive an answer I would not like. That attitude that Mr. Schmidt has shown towards the elected officials in Bosnia and Herzegovina is, unfortunately, typical of the attitude of too many foreign officials who come and go in my country.”

    2023-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9319 (2023) · source

15. “Those dictatorial actions have resulted in a flood of rash, ill-considered, humiliating decrees — more than 460 pieces of legislation and regulations, 110 amendments to the entity Constitutions and 249 extrajudicial punishments of individuals — all with no legal authority or oversight. Despite widespread agreement, even among former High Representatives, that the High Representative’s claim to rule by decree is utterly illegal, Mr. Christian Schmidt has rashly announced additional disruptive decrees that have infuriated large segments of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s population.”

    2023-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9319 (2023) · source

16. “The first is the illegal transformation of the role of the High Representative from a facilitator into an autocrat with unlimited powers vastly exceeding the strictly limited mandate agreed in annex 10 of the Dayton Accords. The despotic powers claimed by the High Representative are even more expansive than those of a foreign viceroy, as they are asserted to be completely immune from any limitations or oversight whatsoever. Successive High Representatives, having almost no relevant experience in the region and few relevant credentials for the position, have ruled by decree with no local hearings, no consultation with elected bodies or officials in Bosnia and Herzegovina and no due process whatsoever; and they have done so with no authority granted by the Security Council or by any valid legal instrument or international organization.”

    2023-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9319 (2023) · source

17. “It is true that Bosnia and Herzegovina often finds itself in a state of political tension, but that condition is typical among most democracies, including many of those represented in the Chamber today. And that brings me to my third point. The primary threat to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s stability does not come from charged political statements, but from the failure to faithfully implement the Dayton Accords. Quite simply, if the deal struck in Dayton is not honoured, then there is no hope for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s success. There are two particularly pernicious ways in which there has been a failure to adhere to what was agreed in Dayton.”

    2023-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9319 (2023) · source

18. “If we all share the common goal of a sovereign, independent, stable, functional and prosperous Bosnia and Herzegovina, then the most important thing that the Security Council and its members can do is to support the Dayton Accords by word and deed and condemn actions that would undo the carefully crafted system of checks and balances guaranteed in the Bosnia and Herzegovina Constitution. My second point is that, despite some heated rhetoric, the security situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina is, in fact, quite stable, as the European Union Military Operation in Bosnia and Herzegovina has recently confirmed. Bosnia and Herzegovina is not at all the powder keg it is alleged to be by some who seek more foreign intervention and control over Bosnia and Herzegovina.”

    2023-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9319 (2023) · source

19. “Since the Republika Srpska, the entity that elected me to the Bosnia and Herzegovina Presidency, is mentioned so many times in this Chamber, I would like to note that in Dayton, the Republika Srpska agreed with the other parties to be part of a highly decentralized Bosnia and Herzegovina in which all competences belong to the two entities except for those few competences that the Constitution expressly assigns to Bosnia and Herzegovina-level institutions. In the decades since the Dayton Accords were signed, Bosnia and Herzegovina has been contorted into a much more centralized system, owing almost entirely to foreign interventions, rather than legal, democratic actions.”

    2023-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9319 (2023) · source

20. “The Bosnia and Herzegovina Constitution was carefully designed based on the recognition of that simple reality and established a system with decentralized authority and important power-sharing mechanisms in order to give each of the groups confidence that it will not come under the rule of the other groups. That carefully crafted system has successfully preserved peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina for more than 27 years.”

    2023-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9319 (2023) · source

21. “Mrs. Cvijanović (Bosnia and Herzegovina): I thank you, Madam President, for this opportunity to address the Security Council. I am encouraged to hear so many statements indicating that the Governments represented in this meeting all share the same objective — a Bosnia and Herzegovina that is sovereign, independent, stable, functional and prosperous. With this shared goal in mind, I would like to emphasize three points that any informed observer must agree are key to accomplishing it. First, and most important, the only realistic path towards this shared objective is adherence to the Dayton Accords, including the Bosnia and Herzegovina Constitution, which incorporated a formula for power- sharing among the three major constituent peoples in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which share a long history of conflict.”

    2023-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9319 (2023) · source