{"id":6247,"date":"2015-07-30T10:28:07","date_gmt":"2015-07-30T10:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eu-monitoring.ba\/?p=6247"},"modified":"2015-07-30T10:46:53","modified_gmt":"2015-07-30T10:46:53","slug":"apr-2015-fight-against-discrimination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eu-monitoring.ba\/en\/apr-2015-fight-against-discrimination\/","title":{"rendered":"APR 2015: Fight against discrimination"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"11798524_1112596485471773_521367212_n\"Legal framework<\/strong>
\nWith the pressure from the international community and with the goal of visa liberalization,\u00a0Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted the Law on Prohibition of Discrimination in 2009. A large number\u00a0of obligations arising from law that were supposed to happen a few months after the adoption of\u00a0the law were never fulfilled. Ministry for Human Rights and Refugees of Bosnia and Herzegovina\u00a0has started preparations for the amendment of the Law on Prohibition of Discrimination. It is\u00a0necessary to harmonize the law with the acquis communautaire<\/em> of the European Union, as Bosnia\u00a0was asked to do in Structured Dialogue on Justice for BiH in May 2014 (see chapter 2.1 Judicial\u00a0System), and to ensure that the process of developing the Strategy for Combating and Preventing\u00a0Discrimination is not postponed, but that the process is started immediately.<\/p>\n

Current situation<\/strong>
\nBosnia and Herzegovina has a large number of cases of discrimination despite the existence\u00a0of the Law on Prohibition of Discrimination and policies in specific areas that should work\u00a0towards eliminating systemic discrimination. Discrimination is recorded particularly in\u00a0education (two schools under one roof), employment (on the basis of political affiliation, status\u00a0of returnees) and work (mobbing and sexual harassment), social and health care (people with\u00a0disabilities, Roma). Certain categories of people are exposed to multiple discrimination, and\u00a0in a variety of areas such as persons with disabilities, Roma, LGBT, returnees, members of the\u00a0constituent peoples when they are in the minority in a territory, etc.\u00a0There has been a series of problems in the application of the law (see chapter 1.6 Institution of\u00a0Human Rights Ombudsman) such as short deadlines for instituting proceedings for protection\u00a0against discrimination, ineffective protection against retaliation in a case of discrimination and\u00a0testifying in cases of discrimination.<\/p>\n

The Law on Prohibition of Discrimination is not harmonized with the non-discriminatory
\nregulations of the European Union. The Law does not list some characteristics as potential
\nbasis for protection from discrimination, such as age and disability, while the listed grounds
\nsuch as sexual orientation or sexual expression have not been defined and do not reflect the\u00a0true intention of the legislature to prohibit discrimination against LGBT people. The Law also\u00a0contains a wrong definition of exemption from the principle of equal treatment.
\nAt the practical level institutions, especially the institutions in which everyday citizens
\ndemand their rights, lack institutional policies and rules of procedure for handling cases of
\ndiscrimination. Neither the institutions nor the courts have mandatory and regular education\u00a0on the Law on Prohibition of Discrimination. Therefore a new legal doctrine for Bosnia and\u00a0Herzegovina, such as transfer of the burden of proof is arising in court processes. Problems are\u00a0arising in jurisprudence because of ignorance and the failure to apply the test for discrimination\u00a0as it has been established by the European Court of Human Rights. The Institution of Human\u00a0Rights Ombudsman in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a central institution for the protection against\u00a0discrimination cited lack of human and financial resources necessary for implementation of the\u00a0Law on Prohibition of Discrimination as a serious obstacle to the application of this decree.<\/p>\n

The state budget, adopted in May 2015, once again does not plan special funds for the
\nDepartment for Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination within the Institution of Ombudsman,\u00a0although the Law assumes its existence.<\/p>\n

Recommendations<\/strong>
\n\u2022 Urgently harmonize the BiH Law\u00a0on Prohibition of Discrimination\u00a0with the acquis communautaire<\/em>,\u00a0and through amendments correct\u00a0the noticed oversights in the
\nprevious implementation, with\u00a0the close collaboration and equal\u00a0participation of the BiH Ministry of\u00a0Human Rights and Refugees, the BiH\u00a0Joint Committee on Human Rights,\u00a0in order to ensure the parliamentary\u00a0support, and the civil society\u00a0organizations who are working on\u00a0combating discrimination;
\n\u2022 Establish a regular practice of\u00a0reporting about the various forms of\u00a0discrimination, which would include\u00a0a proposal of measures to eliminate\u00a0and prevent discrimination trends;
\n\u2022 Develop multi-annual Strategy\u00a0for Combating and Preventing\u00a0Discrimination in cooperation with\u00a0the civil society organizations.<\/p>\n

This article is part of Alternative Progress Report 2015: political criteria<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Legal framework With the pressure from the international community and with the goal of visa liberalization,\u00a0Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted the Law on Prohibition of Discrimination in 2009. A large number\u00a0of obligations arising from law that were supposed to happen a few months after the adoption of\u00a0the law were never fulfilled. Ministry for Human Rights and … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6246,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[765],"tags":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/eu-monitoring.ba\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/11798524_1112596485471773_521367212_n.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eu-monitoring.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6247"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eu-monitoring.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eu-monitoring.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eu-monitoring.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eu-monitoring.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/eu-monitoring.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eu-monitoring.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eu-monitoring.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eu-monitoring.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eu-monitoring.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}