Council of Ministers to consider status of agents before the ECtHR tomorrow, deadline for response 31 October

(Patria) - The Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina will have another topic for discussion at its regular session tomorrow, in addition to the proposed agenda.

- I requested that under miscellaneous items we consider the issue of the status of our agents before the European Court of Human Rights for BiH. The Council of Ministers must give its statement, because this was requested of us by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, and the deadline for the statement is 31 October. We must declare whether our agents had accreditation to file an appeal against the judgment of this court, said Oslobođenje the Minister of Human Rights and Refugees of BiH, Sevlid Hurtić.

We recall that BiH is represented before the European Court of Human Rights by Monika Mijić and Harisa Bačvić. Until recently, our third agent was also Jelena Cvijetić, who was appointed as Deputy Ombudsman of BiH. They, on behalf of BiH, filed an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights against the judgment in the case of the appeal of Slaven Kovačević.

We recall that the ECtHR ruled in favor of the appellant and ordered BiH to amend the discriminatory provisions of the Election Law and the Constitution of BiH. Kovačević filed an appeal because, as he stated, he was denied the right to vote for a member of the Presidency of BiH from the Serbian people. This is the first appeal filed by a citizen of BiH relating to active voting rights. All previous cases: Sejdić and Finci, Zornić, Pilav, Šlaku and Pudarić related to passive voting rights, i.e., the inability to run for certain positions.

However, given that the mandates of Bačvić, Mijić and Cvijetić had already expired, a discussion ensued as to whether they were even authorized to file the appeal. This is especially so because this is the first time that BiH has appealed such a judgment of the ECtHR.