OHR
Citizenship Review Commission Mandate
The mandate of the State Commission for the Review of Decisions on Naturalisation of Foreign Citizens, established by the Decision of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina of 16 February 2006, is due to expire on Friday.
The Commission was established with a one-year mandate to review naturalisations of foreign citizens that took place between 6 April 1992 and 1 January 2006.
At its session of 18 October 2006, the BiH CoM gave its full support to the work of the Commission, stating that the Commission should continue its work and tasking it with forwarding its findings to the BiH Prosecutor’s Office.
The Commission has some 1,320 cases to review. Decisions have been handed down in 856 cases, a further 465 are yet to be completed.
The Citizenship Review Commission and the review process it is leading are critical to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s counter-terrorism efforts. They are also important to building confidence in BiH in the European Union and elsewhere, thereby helping with visa facilitation. It is therefore essential that the Commission complete its work.
Under normal circumstances, the BiH Parliamentary Assembly would be in a position to decide on an extension of the Commission’s mandate. However, the BiH House of Peoples is yet to be established. This raises the question of how the Commission will be able to see its task through to completion.
The OHR calls on Bosnia and Herzegovina’s institutions to consider this case carefully to find a way of resolving the problem before the Commission’s mandate expires at the end of the week.
EUFOR
No official statement.