The Government of the Republic of Srpska is non-transparent and misuses administrative powers. This is how we could interpret in more informal terms the summary of the verdict of the District Court in Banja Luka, delivered on October 10, 2024 in favor of Transparency International in BiH, which, before this court, initiated an administrative dispute against the Government of the RS due to non-delivery of information.
Namely, seven months ago (April 2024), the members of the Legal Team for Helping Human Rights Defenders in BiH – Transparency International BiH and the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly requested from the Government of the Republic of Srpska data on the session(s) of the Government at which the Draft Law on the Special Register and Publicity of the Work of Non-Profit Organizations of the RS was determined.
The request was made based on the Law on Freedom of Access to Information and with the intention of finding out when the session was held, who was present and how they voted on this law, which civil society organizations assessed as restrictive and harmful. We considered that the Draft Law, for which we requested information about who supported it and when, concerns a large number of non-government organizations active in the Republic of Srpska (according to the e-Registry, there are more than 7,500 associations and foundations active in the Republic of Srpska), and many of them provide direct legal or other types of assistance to citizens of Republic of Srpska who, if these organizations stop working, would feel it firsthand.
However, the Government of RS refused to provide this information, stating that there is no public interest in publishing this data. In addition, in this case, they established an exception to the obligation to provide information “for the purpose of protecting the decision-making process”, emphasizing that “the presentation of each member of the Government constitutes secret information”!
After that, we initiated administrative disputes before the District Court in Banja Luka.
The first verdict of the District Court (number: 11 0 U 036609 24) was delivered on October 10 in favor of Transparency International in BiH! The verdict highlighted several key irregularities that led to the decision in favor of TI BiH, including non-compliance with legal obligations by the General Secretariat of the Government of the RS, neglect of the principles of transparency and fair procedure, and misuse of administrative powers.
In the end, this means that the Government of the RS must adopt a new administrative act in which it will respect the opinion of the court or act on the request of the TI BIH and submit the requested data.
Read more about the verdict here in the attached PDF document:
sazetak presude Okruznog suda – TI BIHDownload
A similar dispute before the District Court was initiated by the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Banja Luka in June 2024, and a verdict is still awaited.
Photo: Pixabay
