The OHR welcomes today’s judgement of the FBiH Constitutional Court which obliges the cantonal assemblies in Posavina, Herzegovina-Neretva, and West Herzegovina Cantons to amend their respective constitutions and bring them in line with the FBiH Constitution, in particular with respect to ensuring full equality of Serb constituent people, the Serbian and Bosnian language, and the Cyrillic script.
The High Representative’s 2002 decision enacting the amendments to the FBiH Constitution within the wider implementation of the BiH Constitutional Court’s decision on equality of constituent peoples determined that all three constituent peoples are equal in the Federation, that the official languages of the Federation are Bosnian language, Croatian language and Serbian language and that the official scripts shall be Latin and Cyrillic. Cantons remained under the obligation to harmonize their Constitutions with the Federation Constitution. It is important to finally harmonize unconstitutional provisions of three cantonal constitutions with the related provisions of the FBiH Constitution.
The High Representative has repeatedly called upon the cantonal authorities to harmonize their constitutions with the FBiH Constitution. “I urge cantonal assemblies to implement today’s judgement of FBiH Constitutional Court without delay, which is a constitutional obligation, but also a friendly gesture of good will towards the Serb neighbours,” said the High Representative.