In the next 90 days, the Ministry of Communications and Transport of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) will have to adjust the Vehicle Registration Rulebook that Minister Vojin Mitrović passed in violation of the law and set procedures.

During the inspection audit, inspectors of the BiH MoJ Administrative established that the said Rulebook was not aligned with the Administration Act, which is why the Ministry was ordered to amend it.

Under the Rulebook, the Ministry stipulated that the procurement of validation stickers could be entrusted to a private company or a professional institution. According to the new rules, stickers cost nine marks, almost twice as much as before, as CIN reported in August 2022.

Until now, drivers have been paying for the stickers to the budget of BiH, and under the new Rulebook, the funds should be paid to a private company to which the Ministry awards a contract. In this case, that company would collect at least BAM ten million a year from drivers.

The decision of the Administrative Inspector states that public powers can be transferred only by law and not by secondary legislation such as the Vehicle Registration Rulebook.

“The transfer of public powers is possible only based on legal provisions explicitly stating which public powers and to what extent may be entrusted to institutions with public powers. Therefore, administrative and professional affairs falling under the remit of an administrative body can be entrusted to other legal persons explicitly based on a law passed by the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH”.

The BiH MoJ Administrative Inspectorate examined the legal basis of the new Vehicle Registration Rulebook at the initiative of the Deputy Minister of Communications and Transport, Nedžad Branković.

The Agency for Identification Documents, Registers and Data Exchange of Bosnia and Herzegovina (IDDEEA), which is responsible for the procurement of validation stickers, warned the Ministry about the unlawful nature of the new Rulebook before, but the Ministry did not react. The opinions of other competent authorities such as the Foreign Trade Chamber of BiH, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republika Srpska, the FBiH Ministry of Transport and Communications, and the cantonal ministries of the interior were also ignored.

The inspectors also indicated that the Vehicle Registration Rulebook has not been submitted to the Directorate for European Integration, even though the Ministry had an obligation to do so.

In mid-September 2022, Transparency International in BiH (TI BiH) filed a criminal complaint against Minister Mitrović. TI BiH holds that by adopting the new Rulebook on vehicle registration against the laws and established procedures, Minister Mitrović abused his office and powers.