Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic challenged countries around the world to preserve public health which entailed limitations of human rights. We have seen around the world that these limitations were adopted in way that was not in accordance with the proportionality principle, which led to misuse of the state of emergency in general and the interventionism of unseen proportions. The goal of this paper is to present how Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a country in transition, faced the COVID-19 pandemic and give an overview of the events that represent human rights and freedoms violations and abuses associated with the state of emergency.
Highlights
Since the appearance of COVID-19 which caused global pandemic, this disease in scientific, political and media discourse was named with equipollent term as the „unknown deadly enemy‟
The goal of this paper is to present how Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a country in transition, faced the COVID-19 pandemic and give an overview of the events that represent human rights and freedoms violations and abuses associated with the state of emergency
The COVID-19 pandemic poses a threat for public health and human lives which prompted many countries around the world to declare the state of emergency
Summary
Since the appearance of COVID-19 which caused global pandemic, this disease in scientific, political and media discourse was named with equipollent term as the „unknown deadly enemy‟. The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina made a decision on appeal from seven delegates from the Republic of Srpska Council of People from 6 February 2020 which states that Article 53 of the Law on Agricultural Land of the Republic of Srpska is unconstitutional (Constitutional Court U-8/19) This decision of the Constitutional Court of BiH caused political crisis in BiH because political elite from the Republic of Srpska (hereinafter: RS) decided to block state institutions in BiH. It is interesting that entity representatives are not mentioned anywhere in the Law on the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council, and nowhere does it state that the Council members are responsible for the protection of the entity This is how BiH prepared for the pandemic, with blocked institutions and where the president of the institution responsible for the independent work of judicial power explicitly showed that his work is influenced by the executive and legislative branches in RS. Of the paper we will analyze the most prominent events which followed, and actions and statements of political elite and other public officials in BiH, compare them with the rule of law definitions made by political and legal philosophers, which defined the rule of law in several different ways but essentially all were in agreement that the rule of law represents the supremacy of law over the state
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