Representatives of non-governmental organizations and the academic community gathered around the Declaration for constitutional and other reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina on its way to the EU and NATO held working consultative meetings after which they met at the Office of the High Representative (OHR) with Deputy High Representative Tobias Privitelli, on Thursday.
Representatives of the Forum of Parliamentarians of BiH 1990, the Council of the Congress of Bosniak Intellectuals, the Croat National Council of BiH, the Serb Civic Council, the Jewish Community La Benevolencija, the Croat Home Association, the Center for the Promotion of Civil Society, the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the appellant before the ECtHR, Jakob Finci and the representative of the group of independent intellectuals, academician Abdullah Sidran, agreed on a specific proposal related to the election of delegates to the House of Peoples of the Federation (FBiH) entity, the proposal to unblock the election and the removal of the president/vice president of the FBIH as well as the election of judges of the Constitutional Court of the FBIH, with which they introduced the OHR.
The proposal is based on the existing legislative framework, it does not lead to new ethno-territorial divisions, it is based on the electoral and ethnic legality and legitimacy of the elected members of the assemblies and the FBiH House of Representatives, the provisions of the FBIH Constitution on the election of cantonal delegates as well as the BiH Election Commission’s Instructions from 2018, and in no way calls into question the electoral process that is already underway, they said.
After an almost two-hour conversation, it was unanimously concluded that the conversation between the OHR and representatives of civil society organizations and the academic community should continue as soon as possible, immediately after meeting the High Representative, Christian Schmidt and the OHR’s legal department are presented with their proposals, they stated.
