Thursday 6 May 2010

(Lack of) Follow-up on Sejdic and Finci

In December last year the European Court of Human Rights ruled that some provisions of the Bosnian Constitution, as negotiated in the context of the Dayton Peace Agreement, violated the ECHR. Sejdic and Finci (shown on the photo) were prevented from running for certain political positions, because they were Roma and Jewish and therefore did not belong (nor did they want to proclaim themselves as belonging) to one of the three main groups in Bosnia: Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs. See my earlier post on the judgment here. Ever since, the Council of Europe has been calling upon Bosnia to initiate changes, especially with elections coming up this autumn, but so far no real progress has been made. I can recommend this very informative article on the website of Radio Free Europe on the developments since the judgment.