A decade ago, TV reporter in National Assembly of Republic of Srpska has conducted interesting questionnaire. He asked national representatives what is written in the law they just adopted. It turned out hey had no idea and that they did not even take a look into the law draft. How did they vote, you probably ask yourself! Simply: as they party chiefs said.
Since then, nothing in particular changed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, except that even journalist less and less read laws. They simply have no time.
It would be convenient to check by this same methodology how many politicians, who so loudly advocate for constitutional reform or fight against it, how many journalists, who write on the political discussions, have had read Constitution of BiH at all.
This exact Constitution, or more accurately Annex fourth of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in BiH, well known under nickname Dayton Agreement, is not so difficult to read. It has only 12 articles and two annexes which are, along with the preamble, 14 pages in total or somewhat more than 30.000 characters of text. Therefore, it can be read approximately in less than one hour.
For an hour of carefully reading, every citizen can discover what is written in than famous Constitution and what is not. And he/she can clearly conclude how much is Constitution (dis)respected in this quasi-constitutional state and what constitutional changes are really needed for citizens of this state. You do not need some special expertise in this process. First you read Constitution then you review every-day life and see what is wrong there.
Therefore, the Constitution says that Bosnia and Herzegovina has two entities, that Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks are constituent peoples but that there are also other citizens of BiH. It also says what should do and what are exactly the Presidency of BiH, Parliamentary Assembly, Council of Ministers, Constitutional Court, Central Bank…It counts also jurisdictions of BiH, which are usual topics of discussion among politicians. And that is what public knows because this is (the only) matter of discussion among politicians and media whenever the Constitution is mentioned.
But, there are a lot of things that people do not know about Constitution which could be a great occasion for some journalist to ask politicians about a little bit and thus open discussion on constitutional reform from completely different angle.
Let’s say, Constitution of BiH is written exclusively in male gender. The Constitution of BiH does not include women Serbs, Croats or Bosniaks. There are also no women citizens and even when unfortunately “others” are mentioned the term is not used in female gender.
In Constitution of BiH women are mentioned only once, that is in annex where, watch now, is mentioned that BiH must respect Convention on Citizenship of Married Women. Therefore, there are no single or divorced women in the Constitution, not even in annex. They are simply not the constitutional category in BiH.
Gender equality is, only indirectly, mentioned twice: when it is stated that no one can be left without citizenship of BiH, no matter what is his/her sex, race, national or religion affiliation is and in article where it is stated that sex cannot be ground for discrimination.
Gender equality in Constitution of BiH is nowhere to be found. And why it should be, men and women are neither entities nor constituent peoples.
Constitution of BiH includes article dedicated to non-discrimination or prohibition of discrimination on every ground and also based on gender or sex and based on his/her place of birth or residence. But, as people say “law has its course and life has its own”. And in the jungle of laws and other regulations, which are formally based on the Constitution, we can find a lot of discrimination principles. In one entity, women in labor have the right to maternity benefit from public funds even if they are unemployed. In other entity, in most of the cantons this right applies only to employed women in labor and not even everywhere. The difference in maternity benefits is explicit and somewhere it only exists on the paper as in the reality these benefits are not paid or at least not in time.
Constitution says that all decisions of the Constitutional Court of BiH are definite and obligatory but it seems this is not respected at all. Dozens of decisions of the Constitutional Court of BiH have never been implemented and – there is no one to blame. It would be convenient to take a peek into these decisions and to see whose rights are violated by their non-implementation.
Constitution of BiH does not guarantee right to health care or right to work.
Constitution of BiH says that European Convention on Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in BiH is implemented directly and takes priority over all other laws. And this convention includes many nice things. But, how many judges, officials, police officers in this country actually read this convention!
Some convenient questionnaire can be conducted on this topic, such as this from the beginning of our story.
For the Initiative Women Citizens for Constitutional Reform has written journalist and activist Milkica Milojević.
Women Citizens for Constitutional Reform 