Attempt at dissent

Glosa of the day, or on the wittiness of Australians

2010-07-25T04:35:00.000-07:00

Mr. President, Members of the Court, I am a devoted but disgruntled South Australian. “I hereby declare the independence of South Australia.” What has happened? Precisely nothing. Have I committed an internationally wrongful act in your presence? Of course not. Have I committed an ineffective act? Very likely (...) A declaration issued by persons within a State is a collection of words writ in water; it is the sound of one hand clapping. What matters is what is done subsequently, especially the reaction of the international community. That reaction may take time to reveal itself.

Advisory opinion of International Court of Justice on the Accordance with international law of the unilateral declaration of independence in respect of Kosovo (2010), James Crawford, Oral Argument for the United Kingdom, para. 5, 6 (10.12.2009).

Glosa of the day, or on the seriousness of law

2010-07-24T06:20:00.000-07:00

The other side has sought to create a great fog. If their view is right, even at this admissibility stage of proceedings you are being asked to express views on a wide range of exotic issues - erupting volcanoes, devastating floods, eighteenth century expeditions, disappearing islands, and so on and so forth. But we are not at the movies. We are before a court of law - the world’s principal judicial organ - and it is appropriate that we return to the real legal issues.

Application for Revision of the Judgment of 11 September 1992 in the Case concerning the Land, Island and Maritime Frontier Dispute (El Salvador/Honduras: Nicaragua intervening) (El Salvador v. Honduras), Phillipe Sands, Oral Argument for Honduras, para. 3 (12.09.2003)

Glosa of the day, or on the declarations in time

2010-07-22T14:06:00.000-07:00

Such declarations are no more than foam on the tide of time; they cannot allow the past to be forgotten nor a future to be built on fragments of the present.

Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Accordance with international law of the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo (2010), the Dissenting Opinion of Judge Bennouna, para. 69

Glosa of the day, or on the nature of silence

2010-07-11T08:23:00.000-07:00

At one point after the killings he was in the car with his driver, Milorad Birčaković. His driver testified that the two of them were silent in the car and they didn’t talk because they were in despair (about the killings). This statement however only can be imputed to the driver himself. It was the driver’s statement and reflects only his state of mind. It cannot be used to assume that Trbić (who actually said nothing) was in agreement with this. On the contrary, in a situation where much could be said and shared he just remained silent.

Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Milorad Trbić, First Instance Verdict, X-KR-07/386, 16 October 2009, para. 807.

Glosa of the day, or on the nature of hatred

2010-07-11T07:44:00.001-07:00

...For many of us this means facing the uncomfortable truth that ordinary people are capable of committing genocide. What after all does it take? Perhaps unlike murder it takes a more complete indifference to a portion of humanity. The perpetrator must have the ability to forget that a specific portion of the population, of one's larger community, is human. It takes a consuming indifference to the fate of a member of this group. The very notion of indifference here goes beyond hate. Hate implies relationship, something many in this particular conflict had with neighbors, colleges, in-laws and schoolmates. But these relationships were also destroyed by the dehumanization that some, not all, embraced. While many resisted what they knew to be false, many did not and fell victim themselves to this propaganda. But once a person loses his humanity to indifference, genocide becomes a means to the end.

Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Milorad Trbić, First Instance Verdict, X-KR-07/386, 16 October 2009, para. 794.

Glosa of the day, or on the arbitrariness of analogy

2010-06-01T10:40:00.000-07:00

...where such manifestly conflicting rulings stem from the same jurisdiction, and no reasonable explanation is given for the divergence, such rulings smack of arbitrariness.

Saghinadze and others v. Georgia, Applicaton no. 18768/05, Judgment (Merits), 27 May 2010, para. 116.

Now - how would this apply to a country, the only such in the world, that does not even have the "same"/single/unifying jurisdiction? Systematic arbitrariness beyond all reason.

Glosa of the day, iskurikaj ovaj vitae!

2010-05-31T16:38:00.000-07:00

Usporedno sa stjecanjem školskih referencija ili djelomice i, poredbeno s njima dr. Pranjić je izgrađivao, bez obzira na znanstveno oblikovanje, jednako bitnu empirijsku supstancu djelatnog bića, obavljajući raznovrsne poslove. U idejnoj sferi, Stjepo dr. Pranjić je mislio i djelovao protiv monizma - za pluralizam i konkurenicju. Na toj idejnoj premisi a zatim i na njoj lično izgrađnoj i vrednovanoj praksi odlikovan je Spomenicom domovinske zahvalnosti...

From the CV of the President of the Competition Council of BiH

Glosa of the day, or on the coherence

2010-05-31T16:16:00.001-07:00

"Slažem se da postoje različiti dijelovi Ustava koji izgleda da imaju kontradiktorne vrijednosti i ciljeve, ali ustavi nikada nisu bili logični."

Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Decision on Admissibility and Merits, AP-2678/06, Separrate Concurring Opinion of Judge Feldman, p. 5, Sarajevo, 29 September 2006.

Intrigantno mišljenje, još zanimljiviji prijevod sa engleskog.

Glosa of the day, or on the rights of states

2010-05-30T11:01:00.000-07:00

[T]he only threat relate[s] to what the applicants adequately describe, in point 6 of their application, as a danger ... to cultural and historical identity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, the country itself does not have a right to non-discrimination, even if discrimination could be established.

Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Decision on Admissibility, AP 2821/09, para. 31, 34, Sarajevo, 26 March 2010.

Glosa of the day, or on the nature of identity

2010-05-30T09:28:00.000-07:00

"The names of the inhabited localities do not present a basis of an identity of one country."

- Council for the Protection of Vital Interest of the Constitutional Court of the Republika Srpska, No. UV-2/09 of 8 July 2009

- Upheld by the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Decision on Admissibility, AP 2821/09 of 26 March 2010.

Glosa of the day, or justitia ante portas!

2009-12-23T03:34:00.000-08:00

Hide the women and children, the non-discrimination is here!

"I cannot see the Convention wanting the applicants to stand for election come hell or high water. Election candidates, even with Armageddon as the price (...) Court does ill to shut its mind to histories in which hate validates culture (...) Court has ordered the respondent State to fling the Dayton accords in the liquidizer and then to start looking for something else (...) Court has not found a hazard of civil war, the avoidance of carnage or the safeguard of territorial cohesion to have sufficient social value to justify some limitation on the rights of the two applicants (...) I cannot endorse a Court that sows ideals and harvests massacre."

- Case of Sejdić and Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Merits and Just Satisfaction, Dissenting Opinion of Judge Bonello 27996/06 and 34836/06, 22 December 2009.

Contrary to Bonello, the situation in BiH is rather uneventful (the rapture is on hold). However, I am astonished that Bonello, and to a lesser degree Mijović and Haynijev, consider that the Court with this Decision had demolished the ethnodemocratic pens and ordered the establishment of the state for the abstract citizen (¶47 of the decision particularly interesting). Fallacy par exellence.

L'enfer, c'est les autres (ili, radije, "Ostali")!

2009-12-21T12:10:00.000-08:00

"Od ponedjeljka pravna država!", reće jednom jedan, skide gaće i sjede u trnje. Da njegov entuzijastični usklik nije metastazirao u rechtsstaat svjedoći rahitičnost naše etno(demo)kratije. Dervo Sejdić ("Rom") i Jakob Finci ("Jevrej"), kao nežigosani uzorci čudne ustavne sorte "Ostalih" (primijeti veliko "O"), imaju to (ne)sretno breme iskupljivanja naše pravne stvarnosti, te njenog (ponovnog) legitimisanja. Po njihovoj tužbi veliko vijeće ("Grand Chamber!") Evropskog suda za ljudska prava sutra će odlučiti o našoj demokratskoj zrelosti, te odrediti naša buduća stremljenja u trpljivosti. Sud će se usuditi biti odvažan, te reći da su odredbe Ustava BiH o članovima Doma naroda Parlamentarne Skupštine BiH, te Predsjedništva (ali i Ustavnog suda, po ustavnom običaju, te Predsjedavajućeg Vijeća ministara po istoj konvenciji, pa i tako dalje) dikriminatorni (s kakvim god impotentnim pravnim posljedicama to bilo)! To je barem čežnja posljednjih endemskih uzoraka apstraktnog građanina ("da možemo uvehnuti sretni"). Ustavni sud BiH, svom snagom svog fašističkog (vidi: E. Šarčević; ali, i ja, što da ne!) pozitivizma, u svojoj odluci (U5/04) izjavljuje, u maniru posljednje istine: "Žao mi je, ali neće ići!". Tog popodneva, negdje u poplavama (i krivicom) natopljenoj zemlji Njemačke, Gustav Radbruch prevrnuo se u grobu, a u zemlji u kojoj se ljudi "vjekovima traže i prepoznaju" Sulejman Tihić spoznao je granice sudskog aktivizma, te gorki završetak jednog "herojskog perioda". Nedugo zatim, povući će svoju drugu apelaciju ("do nekih boljih vremena", valjda dobro znajući da ćemo se svi čoporativno načekati svog Barcelona Traction-a). S nadom da će nas sutra u jedanaest sati Strasbourg negativno integrisati, lahka noć i sretno, riječima: "Od utorka pravna država!"

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