SARAJEVO, Feb 27 (Hina) - The Bosnian Federation government on Tuesday night passed final draft amendments to the federal Constitution and forwarded them into parliament. The government discussed the constitutional amendments for more
than eight hours, and the session which began on Tuesday evening, ended at five o'clock Wednesday. A statement issued after the session said that the adopted amendments fully reflected the demands of the decision made by the by the Bosnian Constitutional Court on the establishment of complete constitutive quality of all three peoples on the entire Bosnian territory. The amendments to the first article of the federal Constitution thus reads that Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs as constitutive peoples, together with other Bosnian Federation citizens, equally form the Federation defined by Annex II of the General Framework Agreement on Peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is suggested that
SARAJEVO, Feb 27 (Hina) - The Bosnian Federation government on
Tuesday night passed final draft amendments to the federal
Constitution and forwarded them into parliament.
The government discussed the constitutional amendments for more
than eight hours, and the session which began on Tuesday evening,
ended at five o'clock Wednesday.
A statement issued after the session said that the adopted
amendments fully reflected the demands of the decision made by the
by the Bosnian Constitutional Court on the establishment of
complete constitutive quality of all three peoples on the entire
Bosnian territory.
The amendments to the first article of the federal Constitution
thus reads that Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs as constitutive peoples,
together with other Bosnian Federation citizens, equally form the
Federation defined by Annex II of the General Framework Agreement
on Peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
It is suggested that the Federation has a coat of arms, a flag and
stamp in the future, but not an anthem, because it was assessed that
an anthem is something only a state can have, not an entity.
Moved was also the equal usage of the Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian
as official languages, and the Latin and Cyrillic as equal scripts.
Other languages may be used in communication and schools.
The government suggested a decrease in the number of MPs of the two
parliament's houses. The House of Representatives would thus have
98 instead of 140 MPs, and the House of Peoples 51, 17 each for a
constitutive people.
The number of delegates at cantonal assemblies would also decrease.
The assemblies would consist of at least 20, and at moth 35
representatives.
The Bosnian Federation president will have two deputies, and all
three would be from different national groups. They will rotate
regularly for four years of mandate. The same mechanism would be
valid for the election of parliament houses' speakers.
The draft amendments envisage that the vital interests of the three
peoples would be preserved firstly by the House of Peoples in which
Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats would be electing deputies.
This reinstates a regulation which was in effect until elections in
2000, when in was decided that MPs at the House of Peoples would be
elected by joint representatives from all national groups.
Decisions on issues of vital national interest would be made with
the consent of most deputies from all three constitutive peoples.
Vital national interests are defined by representation in the
legislative, executive and judicial authorities, participation in
the decision making process, adoption of insignia, development of
culture, education, religion, language, tradition, cultural
heritage, information and disabling discrimination.
The national structure of government members of the Bosnian
Federation will be based on results of the 1991 census, with no more
than 49% of less than 20% of ministers being from one people.
The three peoples would be represented on a parity principle in the
highest judicial institutions.
The consistent implementation of the principle of equality among
the three peoples will grant all ten cantons the status of federal
units with a special government regime, which was the case until now
only in the Central Bosnian and Herzegovina-Neretva cantons.
The Bosnian federation government finally concluded that both
entities should establish symmetric constitutional solutions,
which is one of conditions for Bosnia's admission into the Council
of Europe.
The process of constitutional changes in Bosnia could be completed
by the end of March. There are no indications for now that
interested parties could reach compromise solutions by themselves,
primarily because Bosnian Serbs are opposing the possibility of
establishing a house of peoples in Republika Srpska.
High Representative Wolfgang Petritsch on Tuesday again talked
with representatives of all important political parties in Bosnia,
but with no concrete results.
the president of the Bosnian Social Democratic Party, Zlatko
Lagumdzija, said that views differed now more than ever.
Petritsch will on Thursday be travelling to Brussels to inform
members of the Peace Implementation Council about the results of
negotiations on amendments to the constitution. He had said earlier
that he would not impose solutions on changes to the entity
constitutions without the Council's support.
(hina) lml