BiH Court accepted TI BiH complaint against Central Election Commission’s conclusion of incompetency in the case of Nedzad Brankovic

The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina accepted Transparency International BiH complaint against the conclusion of Central Election Commission of BiH which declares this institution as unauthorized to establish the existence of the conflict of interest in the case of Mr. Nedzad Brankovic, the prime Minister of the Federation of BiH.
In explanation, Central Election Commission (CIK), even with the BiH Court’s verdict that obliges CIK to establish the existence of conflict of interests in the case of Nedzad Brankovic, declared themselves as unauthorized and brought a conclusion which adjourns the procedure, after which the TI BiH appealed to the Appeal Council of BiH Court with the request to decide on the CIK obligation to act on the TI BiH request for establishing the existence of conflict of interests in full competence, considering that the CIK refuses to implement the Law on Conflict of Interests in the BiH institutions and to carry out the enforceable judgment.

As a reminder, the CIK first ignored the TI BiH request to establish the existence of conflict of interests in the case of Mr. Nedzad Brankovic, because it had been confirmed that the Prime Minister Brankovic, while being a Prime Minister of Federation of BiH, was at the same time a shareholder in the Fund Management Company ABDS, which presents an obvious conflict of interests, since Brankovic’s private interests in the fund can influence his public role. After this, TI BiH filed its initial lawsuit in order to convince the CIK to act according to the law and to bring a decision. The BiH Court accepted the lawsuit and ordered the Central Election Commission to act on the TI BiH request and establish the existence of conflict of interests in the period of 15 days from the verdict. However, the CIK ceased the procedure because of their alleged incompetence in this case.

By accepting the TI BiH appeal, the BiH court now returned the case again to the Central Election Commission, because of was established that this institution was authorized to establish the existence of the conflict of interests, and the CIK is now again obliged to review the TI BiH request and bring a decision.