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The agencies of the Property Legislation Implementation Plan welcome the recent decision taken at the Sarajevo Cantonal Assembly to withdraw the Cantonal Law on the Control of Apartments. The withdrawal of this Law follows a similar step taken by the Zenica Doboj Canton Assembly in December of last year, and is in accordance with a decision of the Constitutional Court from 1992, which found the control of socially owned occupancy of apartments through systematic inspections to be in violation of the Constitution. The decision of both Cantonal Assemblies is very much welcomed and should be followed throughout the country. The controls of socially owned apartments have largely been applied in a discriminatory manner, targeting returned displaced persons or refugees in order to find evidence of a violation of the Law on Housing Relations. As such, the Assemblies of these two Cantons have taken an important step both in terms of respecting the decision of the Constitutional Court and also in preventing the further harassment of returnees. In accordance with this decision all such inspections or controls of the use of socially owned apartments must now cease. The Cantonal authorities are encouraged to re-allocate the resources that were previously put into making these checks to more effective use. There is still a great need to identify suitable locations for use as alternative accommodation, and also in taking a pro-active approach to prevent the damage of property prior to the return of the pre-war occupancy right holder.
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