A report on investigation having been launched against Tadic by the country's Office of Prosecutor's special department in charge of the fight against organised crime and corruption was aired on Sunday evening by the state-run television BHT 1. The report was relayed by the press on Monday morning. BHT 1 quoted unnamed sources as giving this piece of information, and connected the allegations with verdicts which the Constitutional Court is expected to hand down on appeals of some former and current state officials who claim that their immunity protect them from being prosecuted as possible perpetrators of criminal offences.
There are several appellants, including the current Croat member of Bosnia's three-man presidency, Dragan Covic, against whom several charges have been pressed.
Prosecutor Mats Matson suspects Mato Tadic of having allegedly taken 100,000 euros in bribes to hand down verdicts in the Covic case in favour of the appellant.
The State Prosecutor's Office department for corruption, organised and white-collar crime, which is comprised of foreign prosecutors, has asked for exempting the president and judges of the Constitutional Court and for banning them from deciding about the immunity of the state officials.
The Court's president Tadic was quoted by the Sarajevo-based 'Dnevni Avaz' daily as labelling such accusations as "utterly ridiculous".
Tadic told the daily on Monday that he had received a letter from the prosecutor Matson, and refuted all allegations from that letter at the court's session in the northern city of Brcko at the end of last week.
Tadic went on to say that Matson did not state in its request who had given the bribes and to whom and under what circumstances.
He added that Constitutional Court judges completely agreed that the letter from the Prosecutor's Office was a drastic example of pressure being exerted on the judiciary.
Tadic believes that through this action Prosecutor Matson wanted to ensure a sort of the decision which the Constitutional Court would hand down without his pressure, too. The verdict to this effect would be that the current and former officials cannot enjoy immunity from prosecution in cases when charges are pressed against them after the end of their term in office.
Tadic slammed the move of foreign prosecutors as something which did not contribute to the promotion of the rule of law in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
In the coming days the Constitutional Court is expected to consider several individual cases and pass verdicts which would pave the way for the local judiciary to initiate probes against a group of former state officials on suspicion of financial wrongdoing and abuse of office.
Apart from Covic, the other most prominent 'suspect' might be a former Prime Minister of the Croat-Muslim entity, Edhem Bicakcic.