Resignation out of moral responsibility in Bosnia and Herzegovina has almost completely disappeared in the public space: it is unknown for officials from the lowest levels to those in the highest positions.
Nermin Nikšić is still the Prime Minister of FBiH, even though, as the Federal Prosecutor’s Office claims, his office was raided by the police a few days earlier.
“Members of the MUP of the Sarajevo Canton, with the support of the MUP of the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton, searched three locations in the area of Sarajevo and Mostar. The Office of the Prime Minister of the Federation, the Ministry of Transport and Communications of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina based in Mostar, a private residential building, as well as the person found in the building, were in question,” the Federal Prosecutor’s Office stated.
The search for evidence
As they explained, the search was conducted with the aim of “collecting additional evidence for further work on the investigation in the case ‘Munjić and others’”. Munjić is the acting director of the FUP, Vahidin Munjić, who was previously arrested, and then, together with Nikšić, found himself at the center of the “Spengavanje” affair, but none of them renounced their position.
After all, just as the former Minister of Security of BiH Nenad Nešić, who was arrested and detained, did not, for moral reasons, until the investigation against him is completed, refuse the chair of the deputy director of the Republic Civil Protection Administration.
So far, no high-ranking police or political official has resigned, even after the shocking case of pimping two girls (15) in Tuzla Canton recently surfaced, in which, as they are accused, policemen and a professor were also involved.
Not even a year and two months after floods and landslides wiped out Donja Jablanica and took 19 lives, no one has deigned to say: “I am withdrawing, I consider it my moral responsibility.”
They pass the hot potato
And it doesn’t make too much of a difference whether it’s high-ranking officials or lower-level officials. When the parents of the children of the “Ivan Goran Kovačić” Primary School in Mrkonjić came out with claims that their children had been victims of peer violence for a year and a half, the then director, after the media had written about it for days, stepped down, but she did not mention ethical responsibility, but instead complained about – media pressure.
“I would beg you not to contact me again, because I have just resigned irrevocably due to media pressure, torture and mistreatment of me and my family,” said Milić for “Nezavisne novine”, thus causing general public anger.
Almir Terzić, a political analyst and journalist from Sarajevo, says that Bosnia and Herzegovina is a clear example that, when any official, at any time, commits any abuse, it usually goes unpunished or with mild sanctions that often end in the purchase of prison sentences.
Two ministers withdrew
“We can draw a parallel with Slovenia, where after the murder of a man in Novi Mesto, two ministers from the Government resigned. Therefore, they did not wait for any kind of court epilogue or for anything to be initiated, they stepped down from those positions themselves,” reminds Terzić.
In BiH, he adds, the officials are not afraid of the citizens, and the people, he says, have generally failed the exam, because they do not put enough pressure on the elected and appointed officials to answer for their misdeeds.
“We can cite as an example Jablanica, where almost 20 people died, while we are still waiting for who will actually take over the case from the prosecutor’s office, for it to start, and we have entered the second year since that event,” says Terzić for “Nezavisne novine”.
He adds, crime and corruption, lawlessness and anarchy have completely taken over BiH.
“Actually, we are talking about the complete legal insecurity of people in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the complete protection of elected and appointed persons at all levels of government. You cannot understand that anyone who commits any kind of abuse remains in that position and that is the best evidence of the legal anarchy we are in,” said Terzić.
“We allowed it”
Sociologist Vladimir Vasić says that the instrument of resignation due to moral responsibility is not used in our country, because we, as citizens, have allowed such things to happen.
“The moment when we first kept silent about these things and gave our direct support to those processes, it became the rule. Malfeasance became the rule with us. It is paradoxical that in a society where 90 percent of citizens declare themselves to be believers, we behave hypocritically. The hypocrisy is that we are accomplices in some of these malfeasances. We are in a serious institutional, value-interest and moral crisis,” Vasić told “Nezavisne novine”.
Changes can happen, he added, in terms of personnel, but we need changes in values, to have zero tolerance for crime and corruption.
“Corruption starts from education, from primary and secondary schools. The moment when parents became their children’s lawyers in schools and when they started making scandals because the child got a lower than excellent grade and was demoted because of inappropriate behavior, that’s when the car started going downhill,” says Vasić.
Maja Čorbić, a psychologist from Tuzla, says that in Bosnia and Herzegovina the absence of resignations for moral reasons is not a coincidence, but a pattern.
When immorality goes unpunished
“It is a social phenomenon in which responsibility is reduced exclusively to what is provable by law, while the ethical dimension of public office has been almost completely lost. In such an environment, resignation is not perceived as an act of personal strength and integrity, but as political weakness and defeat. When institutions do not recognize ethical responsibility, those who act according to conscience are left without support, while immorality remains unpunished,” Čorbićeva points out.
That is why, she adds, a culture of staying at all costs has developed – regardless of the consequences for institutions and citizens’ trust.
“When the public stops expecting morality, political actors stop feeling the obligation to show it. Nevertheless, change is possible: the moment when resignation again becomes a measure of responsibility, and is not perceived exclusively as a loss of power, we can talk about a healthier society. By strengthening public pressure, professional standards and awareness of personal responsibility, moral resignation can once again become a sign of strength, responsibility, integrity, and not weakness,” says Čorbić for “Independent newspaper“.
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