This referendum has been a most serious strike against the constitutional and legal order and the rule of law in Bosnia and Herzegovina since the Dayton Peace Agreement was signed. The implementation of this referendum represents an active, open and aggressive dismissal of both the Decision number U-3/13 of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the fundamental legal principle that decisions made by courts must be respected and implemented. It is not only that this referendum negates the authority of the state judicial institutions. Moreover, it aims to remove their state prerogative, with the purpose of introducing a factor of factual power as a replacement for the standards of democracy and the rule of law. Actually, this is a referendum on the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, i.e. on whether decisions of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina are final and binding for the Republika Srpska entity.

Obstructing the Decision number U-3/13 of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina has reflected two issues making the current situation different from all previous ones, and therefore requiring your prompt intervention. Namely, this is the first time since the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as Annex 4 to the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, came into effect, that one entity has openly boycotted the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and that it has started working proactively towards establishing the situation which is contrary to the court decision. Such boycott of the state judicial authorities conducted by the Republika Srpska entity, as an Anti-Dayton, anti-constitutional and anti-state legal and political precedent, is attempted through legitimizing the will of citizens expressed in the form of the referendum scheduled for the 25^th of September. Therefore, any subsequent declaration on the completed referendum marking it as anti-Dayton or anti-constitutional one, or any subsequent cancellation of its results by legal mechanisms will not annul the political consequence I have just mentioned. In other words, regardless of the future legal consequences of the referendum concerned once it is already implemented, such basis of jeopardizing the political future of Bosnia and Herzegovina will be impossible neutralize.

For years, the political forces in the Republika Srpska entity, led by Milorad Dodik, have jeopardized very aggressively and actively the rule of law and the constitutional and legal order of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while questioning the authority of the state judicial institutions, including the Constitutional Court of BiH, the Court of BiH, and the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Such activities of theirs have lead to anarchy, chaos, legal and political insecurity.

Let me remind you hereafter of the 5th Assembly of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, held in East Sarajevo on 25 April 2015, where the Declaration entitled “Republika Srpska – free and independent future and responsibility“ was adopted. It was set out in this document that “if by end of 2017 there are no visible processes and measurable results of positioning Republika Srpska in accordance with Annex 4 of the Dayton Peace Agreement, then the People's Assembly of Republika Srpska should, in the course of 2018, launch a referendum on independent status of Republika Srpska“. The referendum scheduled for the 25th of September is, obviously, a pilot exercise for the repeatedly announced referendum on secession of the Republika Srpska entity from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the beginning of the collapse of the Dayton Peace Agreement, and thus of the collapse of peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Domestic and international institutions in charge of protecting the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the constitutional and legal order, the rule of law and the sovereignty of state institutions, by not exercising their  institutional responses, by their passivity and not doing what they are mandated to do and undertake, have encouraged the forces of destruction which have been trying to disrupt the Dayton agreement and the peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina alike. These issues are very clear. One should name them by their real names, and stop them before they gain an impetuous as it will be difficult to stop them at that point.

The Steering Board of the Peace Implementation Council provides political guidelines to the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, and it is precisely that political role of Yours – the role of a collective political director for the implementation of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina that should ensure an adequate international and political response to the dangerous and unacceptable referendum, scheduled for the 25^th of September. The situation Bosnia and Herzegovina is now in requires your political support provided to the international and legal reaction of the High Representative, by which the implementation of this referendum will be stopped.

Please receive the assurances of my respect. I hope that Bosnia and Herzegovina and her citizens will soon have more reasons to feel calm and look forward to enjoying a certain European future.