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The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Photo: CCBiH.

Bosnian Croat parties have joined their counterparts in the country’s Serb-led entity Republika Srpksa in calling for the immediate reform of the Constitutional Court.

They are calling for the three foreign judges on the nine-member court to be removed permanently, saying that it gives the international community too much influence over constitutional rulings.

“We currently have a situation in which the votes of the three foreign judges are often decisive,” Bozo Ljubic, the president of the Croat National Council, which represents all the Bosnian Croat parties, told BIRN.

Ljubic said that no disrespect was intended towards the court’s decisions, but parliament should pass a law eliminating the role of the foreign judges.

“Twenty years after the war, Bosnians are ready to take full control of this court,” he said.

According to the Bosnian constitution, three out of nine Constitutional Court judges of should be foreign citizens selected by the president of the European Court of Human Rights, after consultation with the Bosnian presidency.

But it also says that the foreign judges should be appointed for a term of five years, and after that, a new law must be passed to regulate their selection – which has never happened, leading to claims that the foreigners are no longer legitimate judges of the court.

“Currently, the court only works on the basis of some internal procedural regulation, since there is a lack of any general law,” a Constitutional Court spokesperson told BIRN.

The three votes wielded by the foreign judges, together with the two Bosniak judges on the court, have often proved to be decisive, outvoting the two Serb and two Croat judges.

According to the Croatian National Council, the Bosniak and foreign judges have in the past taken decision that went against Croats’ interests.

“That was the case, for instance, when we tried to create a national television station in the Croatian language,” Ljubic told a press conference on Monday.

“The proposal got the approval of parliament, the Croat representatives in the government supported it, but the law was declared unconstitutional only through or the votes of these five judges,” he said.

The Constitutional Court came under strong criticisms from Republika Srpska’s leaders last month when it ruled that the annual Bosnian Serb ‘Republic Day’ public holiday was unconstitutional because it discriminated against non-Serbs.

The foreign judges’ votes were also decisive in that ruling.

The president of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, vowed to hold a referendum on the issue and threatened to withdraw all Serb representatives from state institutions.

“They can stick this decision you know where,” Dodik said.