The Bosnian Croat caucus in the Republika Srpska (RS) parliament's upper house has launched before the Bosnian Serb entity's Constitutional Court a procedure to contest the "law on the protection, preservation and use of the Serbs language and the Cyrillic script" because they say "it brings local Croats in an unequal position," Croatian state agency Hina reported.

The RS parliament “symbolically passed the law” on 15 September, the Day of National Unity, Freedom and the Flag of Republika Srpska and Serbia, which was jointly declared by Serbia and RS, Hina said.

Ethnic Croat MPs in the RS Council of Peoples, supported by the entity’s Croat Vice President, Josip Jerkovic, say the adoption of the law violates “a vital national interest” of Croats as well as the entity’s constitution, which is why they filed this motion.

“They said in a statement that the RS constitution equally defines the languages of the Serb, Croat and Bosniak peoples as official languages and the Latin and the Cyrillic as official scripts,” Hina said.

“The law is an attempt to favour the Serb language and the Cyrillic script over languages of other constituent peoples and the Latin script,” Hina said, citing a formal complaint lodged by Croat MPs in the RS Council of Peoples.

“The adoption of the law would also undermine the equality of the three constituent people,” they said.

This law proscribes mandatory use of the Cyrillic script by all institutions, companies and organizations financed with public money, as well as for publicly financed events. Failure to comply would lead to fines.

Bosniak MPs in the RS parliament’s upper house have also launched a procedure “for assessing whether vital ethnic interests are being undermined,” Hina said.