SARAJEVO, March 26 (Hina) - Not even after six years since the signing of the Washington agreement have the institutions of the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina (Bosnia's Croat-Muslim entity) started to function, which is directly
affecting the extremely high incidence of human rights violations in the entity, federal ombudsmen warned on Monday. Presenting an annual report on the human rights situation in the Croat-Muslim entity in Sarajevo, ombudsman Esad Muhibic told reporters it was their joint assessment that the poor functioning of the federal bodies of authority was primarily the consequence of a lack of political will of the structures which had been in power in the last six years. According to ombudsman Branka Raguz, a direct consequence of the non-functioning of federal authorities was a general lack of confidence among citizens in the institutions of authority as well as constant parallelism
SARAJEVO, March 26 (Hina) - Not even after six years since the
signing of the Washington agreement have the institutions of the
Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina (Bosnia's Croat-Muslim entity)
started to function, which is directly affecting the extremely high
incidence of human rights violations in the entity, federal
ombudsmen warned on Monday.
Presenting an annual report on the human rights situation in the
Croat-Muslim entity in Sarajevo, ombudsman Esad Muhibic told
reporters it was their joint assessment that the poor functioning
of the federal bodies of authority was primarily the consequence of
a lack of political will of the structures which had been in power in
the last six years.
According to ombudsman Branka Raguz, a direct consequence of the
non-functioning of federal authorities was a general lack of
confidence among citizens in the institutions of authority as well
as constant parallelism in their work. All surveys the ombudsmen
have conducted independently or in cooperation with other
institutions confirm that ministries and bodies of state
administration are functioning as separate ethnic structures.
The incompetent and corrupt state administration and judicial
system are contributing to frequent violations of individual and
collective human rights, the 2000 report on the human rights
situation says.
The only improvement registered last year is in the area of refugee
return.
According to ombudsman Vera Jovanovic, it is encouraging that as
many as 31 percent of those wishing to return actually returned to
their homes in 2000. The year before, only nine percent of those
requesting return actually returned to their pre-war homes.
Based on filed complaints, the federal ombudsmen initiated almost
11,000 investigations during 2000. Of that number, about 7,600
investigations were completed. The number of ombudsmen's
recommendations accepted by competent bodies of authority was 59
percent, which is slightly higher than the year before.
The ombudsmen, however, stress that cooperation with the executive
bodies of authority did not meet their expectations and they
expected all levels of the newly-elected government to change that
situation.
(hina) rml