Recently concerns have been aired over Tunisia’s new constitution which disbars non-Muslims from the Presidency. But it was only a few days ago that I first learnt about a comparable example of discrimination much closer to home. In Bosnia, Jews and Roma are debarred from high office:
The [1995] constitution bars anyone who is not one of the country’s three main ethnic groups – Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs – from running for the tripartite national presidency or national house of peoples, one of two parliamentary chambers.
Although the European Court of Human Rights ruled that this constitution was in violation of human rights law back in 2009, nothing has yet been done to remedy this situation.
The head of the Council of Europe has asked Bosnia to implement amendments to correct this discrimination:
“We want to see a clear, concrete and formal proposal submitted to the Bosnian parliament” before the June 4 meeting of the Council of Europe’s ministerial committee, Thorbjorn Jagland told reporters during his visit to Sarajevo.
It is essential that Bosnia make these changes if it wants to proceed further with its bid for EU membership. I’d be interested to know if anyone else knew about Bosnia’s racist constitution.
Finally – it’s good to see that Roma Buzz Monitor seems to have sorted out the hacking problems I mentioned a while back.
