The Government of Republic of Srpska Illegally Did the Minutes from the Sessions

Banja Luka, October 18, 2024 – Transparency International in BiH has won a lawsuit against the Government of the Republic of Srpska for refusing to disclose the minutes of sessions where the Draft Law on the Special Registry and Transparency of the Work of Non-Profit Organizations in the RS was determined.

Due to the contentious and non-transparent process of adopting this law, which garnered significant public interest because it deeply impacts fundamental human rights, Transparency International in BiH requested the minutes from the sessions of the Government of the Republic of Srpska where the Draft Law on the Special Registry and Transparency of the Work of Non-Profit Organizations in the RS was determined. The General Secretariat of the Government of the Republic of Srpska rejected this request, claiming, among other things, that the publication of the requested information, namely the session minutes, was not in the public interest.

Transparency International in BiH subsequently turned to the court, which ruled that withholding the requested information was unlawful and that the Government had improperly applied the provisions of the Law on Freedom of Access to Information. The ruling of the District Court in Banja Luka  specifically highlighted the denial of the constitutionally guaranteed right to appeal and the failure to conduct a public interest test when making the decision.

As a reminder, the Government of the Republic of Srpska secretly approved the Draft Law on the Special Registry and Transparency of the Work of Non-Profit Organizations and forwarded it for adoption to the National Assembly of the RS. The decision on when and how the Draft was approved was not made available to the public. Only after media inquiries did the Government disclose that the Draft had been approved at a session held on March 21, 2024, just before the deadline. Notably, the adoption of this Draft was neither mentioned in the announced agenda nor in the Government’s post-session information.

This verdict is only the latest in a series of examples of the unsatisfactory degree of transparency shown by the authorities in the Republic of Srpska, which is also confirmed by research conducted by TI BiH, according to which only 5 governments in BiH regularly publish decisions, while the materials from the held sessions are not published by any of the 14 governments in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a result of which distrust in the institutions grows, but also room for abuse of procedures and making decisions that are not in the public interest.