TI BiH won a lawsuit against BiH Central Election Commission

Banja Luka, September 3rd 2008 — The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo brought a verdict which accepts the Transparency International BiH’s lawsuit against Central Election Commission (CIK) filed on the basis of administrative silence and in order to establish the existence of conflict of interests in the case of Nedzad Brankovic, the prime minister of Federation of BiH Government.  The verdict orders CIK to make a decision within a period of 15 days from the verdict on whether Nedzad Brankovic is in a position of conflict of interests. CIK is also obliged to compensate the costs of the court procedure to TI BiH.

As a reminder, TI BiH filed a request to the CIK on December 21st 2007 to determine whether there is a conflict of interests in the case of Mr. Brankovic, since he confirmed in his appearances in the media that, while being the prime minister of BiH Federation, he also is a stockholder in the Fund Management Company ABDS which is in disposal of BIG Fund’s property. Bearing this in mind, TI BiH came to a conclusion that there is a conflict of interests in this case, since Brankovic’s private interests in the fund can endanger the legitimacy, transparency, objectivity and impartiality in fulfilling his duties to the public. CIK did not respond to this request within the set time-limit, which led TI BiH to file a lawsuit in order to persuade CIK to act according to the law and bring the appropriate decision.

“I want to believe that, after the BiH Court’s verdict, CIK would finally bring a decision on the existence of conflict of interests in the case of Mr. Brankovic, the FBiH prime minister, according to the law and that there would be no political interference in the decision-making process”, stated Srdjan Blagovcanin, executive director of TI BiH. “This decision is especially important having in mind the forthcoming privatization of BiH Telecom, and that Prime Minister Brankovic in this case represents both private and public interests, which is absolutely unacceptable and illegal. TI BiH will insist on the final resolution of this case, where we see two possible outcomes: either the CIK would make a decision according to the law, after which the prime minister Brankovic would resign from the office, or the CIK would collectively resign because of its unwillingness to implement the Law on conflict of interest”, added Blagovcanin.