The Appellate Panel of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina rejected the request by the defense of the President of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, to disqualify two judges from the second-instance proceedings.
The defense, led by attorney Goran Bubić, filed the request for the disqualification of Judge Vesna Jesenković and Judge Hilmo Vučinić, citing Article 29 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which stipulates that a judge who was involved in the previous proceedings may not participate in the appeals process.
Bubić explained that Judge Jesenković had previously ruled on a request for the delegation of the case, while Judge Vučinić was part of the panel that decided on an appeal in the same proceedings. This involved an attempt to transfer the case from the Court of BiH to an entity-level court in Banja Luka, which the Court had previously rejected.
Due to the request for disqualification, the session of the Appellate Panel was temporarily adjourned and rescheduled to continue at 4 p.m. However, in the meantime, the panel decided to reject the request by Dodik’s defense, thus enabling the continuation of the hearing.
The second-instance panel handling the case against Milorad Dodik is composed of Judges Vesna Jesenković, Hilmo Vučinić, and Amela Huskić.
Written by our correspondent D.I.
