Many Serbs in Bosnia celebrate the "National Day" of Republika Srpska on January 9th. The date is historically charged, especially for the non-Serb inhabitants of Bosnia.
On January 9th 1992, the Bosnian Serb assembly in Sarajevo issued a declaration proclaiming Republika Srpska as an independent “Republic of the Serb people of Bosnia and Herzegovina”, with the goal of joining proclaimed Serb autonomous regions they had carved out in the country with Serbia and Montenegro.
Speaking in 2023, RS President Milorad Dodik said the entity remains "committed" to Bosnia and Herzegovina on the basis of the Constitution, but urged citizens to "magnificently" mark RS Day.
The holiday has been repeatedly declared unconstitutional by the BiH Constitutional Court.
In 2023, then-BiH presidency member Bakir Izetbegovic filed an appeal with the Constitutional Court. The court was to assess whether the Law on Holidays of Republika Srpska was in accordance with the Constitution.
The appeal stated that any holiday represented by only one nation, means discrimination based on ethnic origin.
Two years later, the Constitutional Court did not challenge only the commemoration of Republika Srpska Day, but the date chosen for it -- January 9th. Earlier, the Venice Commission assessed that Republic Day is discriminatory because it is "not in line with the universal values of dialogue, tolerance and understanding".
Despite the Constitutional Court's 2015 decision, which was confirmed in 2019 after the RS National Assembly adopted the new Law on the Day of Republika Srpska, which envisages the marking of January 9th as a secular holiday.
Republika Srpska authorities have continued to mark the day each year as a public holiday – the 1.2 million people who live in the entity, for instance, are not expected to work.
Celebrations are typically held in Banja Luka, the de-facto capital of the Republika Srpska entity, but in 2023 for the first time, the event took place in Serb-majority East Sarajevo, where Republika Srpska’s administrative centre sits.
