Interim reply to Recommendation 1337 (1997) on the functioning of the institutions for the protection of human rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Interim reply to Recommendation 1337 (1997) on the functioning of the institutions for the protection of human rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Communication from the Committee of Ministers

Doc. 7912

17 September 1997

(adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 10 September 1997 at the 600th meeting of the Ministers' Deputies)

1. As the Parliamentary Assembly will recall, the Secretary General has since the creation of the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsperson for Bosnia and Herzegovina in January 1996 provided personnel to that Office including from the Secretariat of the European Commission of Human Rights in order to enable it to fulfil its mandate as contained in Annex 6 to the Dayton Agreement in the most effective way possible.

As far as the Human Rights Chamber is concerned, the Secretariat, following the visit by the members of the Chamber to the Council of Europe in May 1997, has informed the Chamber of its readiness to second a lawyer for a six-month period to work on cases and assist with the training of national legal staff. The costs of such a secondment would be borne principally by the Council of Europe.

2. The Committee of Ministers is following closely the activities of the working group established by the Venice Commission and the Directorate of Human Rights to prepare a study on an Ombudsman institution of the Republika Srpska. In view of the present situation in that Entity, little progress on this question has been made recently, but the Committee of Ministers will not fail to keep the Assembly informed of any future developments pertaining thereto.

3. As far as the nomination of judges to the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina Human Rights Court is concerned, the Committee of Ministers informs the Assembly that this question is still under consideration, and that it will keep the Assembly informed of any future developments.

4. The Committee of Ministers shares the feeling of urgency in the international community about the need for all competent authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina to co-operate closely with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague, in accordance with Article II.8 of Annex 4 to the Dayton Agreement (the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina). Developments in this respect will have to be considered in deliberations about the accession of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Council of Europe.

5. The Committee of Ministers is not itself competent to consider the issue of enlarging the Stabilisation Force (SFOR) mandate in the sense recommended by the Assembly, but has communicated the Assembly's view to the Office of the High Representative.

6. It is recalled that in January 1996 and March 1997 the Governments of all the member States of the Council of Europe and of the OSCE were urged, by the Chairmen in office of both organisations, to give voluntary contributions to the Human Rights Commission. Indeed, the two parts of the Commission have been financed principally by such voluntary contributions since its creation. The Committee of Ministers has also brought the present Recommendation to the attention of the Governments of the member States.

7. In the light of future developments, the Committee of Ministers will give a supplementary reply to Parliamentary Assembly Recommendation 1337 (1997) at one of its forthcoming meetings.