Two months after the Citizens’ Association Demos, together with its partners, launched a campaign for the adoption of the Law on Citizens’ Initiatives in Brčko District, with the support of the PRAGG project, it is clear that the initiative is now at a crucial stage. Citizens, civil society organizations, and part of the political actors are demanding that this issue not be postponed for some distant future but instead immediately included in the work programs of the Government and the Assembly.

It should be noted that while Republika Srpska and most cantons in the Federation of BiH already have legal mechanisms that enable citizens to formally launch initiatives, Brčko District remains in a legal vacuum. In practice, this means that any citizens’ initiative—from environmental protection to changes in local regulations—depends solely on the goodwill of the authorities. And most often, it remains unanswered.

“The current situation renders every initiative meaningless— even when citizens organize and propose solutions, institutions are under no obligation to respond. Such practice leads to defeatism and undermines democracy: people get used to the idea that problems can only be solved if you ‘know someone,’ instead of through transparent and legitimate procedures where the community’s interest comes first,” Demos representatives emphasized.

They point out that the greatest obstacle is the lack of interest of the political elite in seriously addressing this issue: “Although we have received declarative support from institutional representatives with whom we spoke, we fear that this problem is not among their top priorities. That is why we must constantly remind them and insist that the adoption of this Law is not pushed aside.”

In this context, Demos has recently undertaken a series of steps towards the institutions: “We submitted an initiative to the Government of Brčko District BiH, requesting that the Government’s Work Program for 2025 include taking the necessary measures to draft and forward a proposal of the Law on Citizens’ Initiatives to the Assembly procedure. This also includes forming a special working group that would prepare the draft law and submit it to the Assembly of Brčko District BiH for consideration. We hope that this working group will also include a civil society representative, so that the process is more transparent and closer to the citizens. In parallel, we held meetings with the Mayor and the Head of the Department for Professional and Administrative Affairs and established cooperation with many citizens’ associations, which have become co-signatories of the initiative. In this way, we demonstrated that this demand represents a broader civic need.”

Demos underlines that it is particularly important for the wider public to recognize that this is not about some abstract act, but a law that can directly improve the quality of life in Brčko.