Bosnia's top court annulled several secessionist laws passed by the country's Serb statelet, which provoked a political crisis in the Balkan nation.
The parliament of Republika Srpska (RS), one of two entities making up Bosnia since its 1990s war, had passed the laws in February after a Sarajevo court convicted Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik for failing to comply with decisions of the international envoy who oversees the peace deal that ended the war.
Dodik was sentenced to one year in prison and banned from holding political office for six years. Dodik and the prosecutors have appealled and new hearing is to be held in June.
But Dodik initiated the laws, which include a ban on Bosnia's central police and judiciary from operating in the Serb entity.
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Bosnia's central government has been strengthened over the years to the detriment of the semi-autonomous powers in Republika Srpska and the Muslim Bosniak-Croat federation, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH). The changes include the creation of a central police and judiciary.
Bosnia's Constitutional Court said Thursday that legislation adopted by Bosnian Serbs "annul... the sovereignty of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina over part of its territory."
It said in a statement that only Bosnia's central parliament can decide on the return of powers to one of the regional entities.
Dodik, who as president of Republika Srpska put the controversial laws into effect, has been wanted since March by Bosnia's central judiciary for an "attack on the constitutional order".
The Constitutional Court also annulled a Bosnian Serb law on a special register of non-governmental organisations getting international funding to designate them as foreign agents, adopted also in February.
The court said it based its decision on a European Court of Human Rights ruling which said that similar legislation adopted in Russia was contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights.
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