The trial of Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik, who is accused of defying the rulings of an international peace envoy, was postponed for a third time on January 17 after a decision by the judge to hear a co-defendant's case separately.
Dodik and Milos Lukic, the acting director of the Official Gazette of Republika Srpska, are charged with failing to execute the decisions of High Representative to Bosnia-Herzegovina Christian Schmidt. Dodik faces a sentence of six months to five years in prison and a ban on public duties.
Lukic has been hospitalized due to high blood pressure, and his defense requested a postponement of the opening of the main hearing on January 17. Judge Mirsad Strika rejected the request and went on with the hearing, but only managed to rule on separating the proceedings.
Dodik's defense responded by requesting the disqualification of Strika, arguing that the judge is biased, leaving Strika with no option but to postpone the main hearing for the third time. A new hearing is scheduled for January 30.
Dodik spoke to journalists outside the courthouse after the postponement, saying the proceedings against him and Lukic were unjustifiably separated and the move showed that the trial was just a "political process."
He also said he would sue Bosnia and predicted that he would not go to prison as a result of the trial.
He asserted that he "respected the constitution of Bosnia-Herzegovina" and claimed that the Republika Srpska Constitution was "harmonized" with the Bosnian Constitution and the Dayton agreement that ended the 1992-95 Bosnian War.
"Nowhere does it say that the constitution of the [Republika Srpska] should be adapted to a 'false' high representative," Dodik said, referring to Schmidt.
Since the Dayton agreements, Bosnia has been administered under a Bosniak and Croat federation and the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska. It is overseen by a civilian high representative with UN backing and sweeping powers, the position currently held by Schmidt.
Dodik, who has close relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been charged over two laws he signed in July that allow the Bosnian Serb entity to bypass or ignore decisions made by Schmidt.
One of the laws blocks the publication of decisions made by the high representative in the Official Gazette of Republika Srpska, effectively meaning the entity can disregard them. The other law concerns the nonimplementation of decisions by the Bosnian Constitutional Court in the territory of the entity.
Both laws were adopted in June by the assembly of Republika Srpska in which Dodik's Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) has a majority.
Schmidt on July 1 annulled both laws and used his so-called Bonn powers to impose changes to the Criminal Code of Bosnia, stipulating that an official who does not respect the decisions of the high representative can be punished with a prison sentence of six months to five years and banned from all public duties.
Earlier this week, a new criminal complaint against Dodik and his accomplices was filed by Ramiz Salkic, a member of the Republika Srpska National Assembly, in connection with the celebration of the unconstitutional Republika Srpska Day on January 9.
January 9 marks the date in 1992 when Bosnian Serbs who opposed an independent Bosnia after the breakup of Yugoslavia declared a separate state, triggering the interethnic Bosnian War.
The leadership of Republika Srpska persists with celebrations on January 9 despite Bosnia's Constitutional Court twice having declared the holiday unconstitutional.