The coat of arms of Banja Luka is an official symbol of Banja Luka and exists in three levels – as the basic or small, middle, and great coat of arms.
Banja Luka's heraldic history is comparatively recent, with its beginnings traceable to the first half of the 20th century, when the first unsuccessful attempt at establishing municipal heraldic insignia took place. The city first received an official emblem during Socialist Yugoslavia, which remained in use until 1992, when, amid the breakup of the state and the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Banja Luka held a competition that produced a new coat of arms, which served as the city's official symbol until 2013. That year, the Constitutional Court of Republika Srpska declared the Banja Luka coat of arms unconstitutional for violating the principle of constitutiveness of peoples and equality of citizens, after which Banja Luka began the search for a new coat of arms. After four unsuccessful attempts, in early 2017 the city adopted a new three-tiered coat of arms, designed by architect Dragomir Acović and Ljubodrag Grujić.
The use of the coat of arms of Banja Luka is regulated by the city statute and special city regulations that detail and penalize the use of the coat of arms in various circumstances and locations.
Blazon The coat of arms of the City of Banja Luka is defined in the city's Statute at three levels – basic, middle, and great – as presented below.
Basic coat of arms Blazon of the basic coat of arms:
Middle coat of arms Blazon of the middle coat of arms:
Great coat of arms Blazon of the great coat of arms:
Use The use and protection of the coat of arms of Banja Luka is regulated by the Statute of the City and the Decision on the Use of the Symbols of the City of Banja Luka. The normative framework for regulating the topic of the arms is provided by the Law on Local Self-Government of Republika Srpska, which stipulates that "[...] the form, content, and use of symbols shall be regulated by the statute of the local self-government unit in accordance with the law."
According to the Decision on the Use of the Symbols of the City of Banja Luka, the symbols of the city may not be damaged or used inappropriately, improperly, or in a manner that offends public morals and the dignity of the citizens of Banja Luka, and may only be used in the form, with the content, and in the manner prescribed by the Statute and the Decision on Use. Use requires the approval of the relevant authority. No entity may use the symbols of the city unless so approved, in the manner prescribed by the Decision on Use. The decision granting use of the city's symbols determines, among other things, the purpose, conditions of use, period of validity, as well as other restrictions appropriate to the use of the city's symbols in each specific case. Decisions regarding the use of the city's symbols by legal and natural persons, as well as for various events held under the patronage or in honor of the city, are made by the organizational units of the City Administration corresponding to their competence and the activities they oversee within their scope of work.
An appeal may be filed against this decision of the city, submitted to the Mayor within the time frame defined in the Decision. Additionally, if it is determined that the holder of an issued approval for the use of the coat of arms is using it contrary to the established purpose and conditions of the approval, the competent unit of the City Administration responsible for supervising the implementation of the Decision on Use may revoke the act granting permission to use the arms.
The appearance of the coat of arms at all three levels, for official use, shall be defined by a master copy produced on the basis of the blazon from the Statute. The master copy is to be determined and prescribed by the Mayor and kept in their office.
The use of the coat of arms is prohibited if it is damaged or if its appearance makes it unsuitable for use. The arms may exceptionally be used as an integral part of other emblems and coats of arms, or signs, but only in its original form and in a manner that ensures the dignity and prestige of the city. The use of the coat of arms of the City of Banja Luka in art and for educational and instructional purposes is freely allowed, provided that it does not violate good taste, social and moral norms, heraldic practice and tradition, the Decision on Use, and that it does not offend the reputation of the City of Banja Luka.
Regulations impose an absolute prohibition on the commercial use of the coat of arms. Thus, the arms may not be used as a commercial or service trademark, pattern, or model, nor as any other sign for marking goods or services.
Regarding the official use of the coat of arms, the Decision on Use prescribes the following:
The coat of arms may only be used in accordance with heraldic, vexillological, and sphragistic practice, and the Decision on Use precisely details the manner and rules governing the prescribed display of the arms in this sense. The enforcement of all the above rules is overseen by the Department of Communal Police of the City Administration of the City of Banja Luka, which in the event of a violation of the rules has the right to impose fines on offenders. Fines are tiered by type of violation as prescribed by the Decision on Use.
History Early proposal
Similar to most settlements in the Balkan Peninsula, due to the absence of appropriate historical or social and cultural prerequisites municipal heraldic practice in Banja Luka did not take root and develop until the 20th century. The first attempt to define municipal heraldic insignia for Banja Luka was undertaken in the first half of the 20th century, in the period following the creation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. This involved a proposal for the city's coat of arms by Croatian heraldist Viktor Antun Duišin, created by painter Vera Bojničić Zamola, daughter of Croatian historian and heraldist Ivan Bojničić Kninski. The proposal failed and was never seriously considered.
The proposal for the coat of arms consisted of the following elements: the basic sequence of colors/metals (blue–white–red), alluding to the flag of Yugoslavia, i.e., to the Pan-Slavic colors; a wavy fess as a reminiscence of the river Vrbas; a fortified town as an allusion to the Kastel Fortress — with a marked association to the fortress in the coat of arms of Zagreb; the presence of a crescent moon and star (as a dual allusion to the coat of arms of Illyria and an element following the fortress motif in the coat of arms of Zagreb). The shield is of a Baroque form (though it has no grounding in local tradition), and a wall crown whose structure and construction were derived from the prior Hungarian heraldic norm for settlements. Although not adopted, this proposed coat of arms is notable for some of its elements, which have remained relevant to this day.
This proposal, like other similar proposals for municipal coats of arms in places where heraldic practice did not exist, was driven primarily by political rather than heraldic reasons; it was part of a broader ideological integrative project following the creation of a common Yugoslav state. The Yugoslav government sought to overcome and regulate the social divide and differences that existed between the territories and nations brought together in the common state – including in the domain of municipal heraldry, where there was a more than obvious disparity between territories with developed heraldic practice such as Slovenia, Croatia, or Vojvodina, and the rest of the country where this practice was virtually nonexistent.
Socialist Yugoslavia – the first coat of arms
The second half of the 20th century brought a turning point in the official symbolic marking of the city. The legal basis for the adoption of a new emblem was, as in other municipalities across socialist Yugoslavia, a statutory provision stating that "the Municipality has its own emblem." Banja Luka adopted one accordingly. Thus, in Article 5 of the Statute of the Municipality of Banja Luka from 1974, the following was defined as the municipal emblem:
War and aftermath – new coat of arms
Dramatic changes in the domain of municipal heraldry brought about by the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Bosnian War also affected the coat of arms of Banja Luka. Due to the nature of the conflict, symbols of cities and municipalities were altered to incorporate the symbolism of the dominant ethnic group in a given city or municipality. The new coat of arms adopted in 1992 was adopted within this framework. That year, a public competition for the city's coat of arms was announced. Although detailed information about the competition was never published, among the participants were the Serbian Heraldry Society and Dragomir Acović, who submitted a proposal for a three-tiered coat of arms. The eventual winner – a solution that, with minor refinements and graphical adjustments, persisted as the coat of arms of the city until the Constitutional Court's decision in 2013 – emerged from this process.
According to Article 6 of the Statute of the City of Banja Luka that was in use at the time, the coat of arms was defined as follows:
The official status of this coat of arms was defined by the Statute of the City from 2005, followed by Decisions on the use of the symbols and name of the City of Banja Luka from 2008 and 2010 and finally the adoption of the Book of Graphic Standards in 2011.
Decision of the Constitutional Court of Republika Srpska On 31 March 2006, the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina ruled that the coat of arms of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the coat of arms of Republika Srpska were unconstitutional. The ruling, in response to a lawsuit filed by Sulejman Tihić with Muhamed Filipović as the formal representative of the complaint, brought the issue of territorial heraldry under judicial intervention. A direct consequence of the judicial practice that began with this ruling was the 20 February 2013 decision of the Constitutional Court of Republika Srpska, by which the coat of arms of Banja Luka was declared unconstitutional.
The Club of Delegates from the Bosniak people in the Council of Peoples of Republika Srpska filed an initiative with the Constitutional Court of Republika Srpska to assess the constitutionality and legality of Article 6 of the Statute of the City of Banja Luka, more specifically the provisions of the article defining the specific appearance of the city's symbols. The petitioner argued that the aforementioned paragraphs of Article 6 were not in accordance with articles of the Constitution of Republika Srpska, which establish the principle of constitutiveness and equality of peoples and citizens, as well as non-discrimination on any basis. The petitioner also argued that the disputed paragraphs of the city statute were not consistent with an article of the Law on Local Self-Government, which prescribes that the symbol shall express the historical, cultural, and natural heritage of the unit of local self-government.
The Assembly of the City of Banja Luka submitted a response to the Constitutional Court, in which it cited the provisions of the Article of the Law on Local Self-Government regulating the issue of municipal symbols, and pointed to the provision of Article 118 of the disputed statute, which prescribed that the appearance of the symbol from the disputed article was of a temporary nature and that it would be determined by a special statutory decision – following the completion of the procedure prescribed by law.