Commission on Human Rights

Even after taking a quick look at the Constitution of BiH, it becomes clear that special importance has been given to the protection of human rights in the Peace Agreement. Annex 6 to the GFAP – Agreement on Human Rights – is therefore of crucial importance. In that agreement the contracting parties have undertaken to ensure the highest level of internationally recognised human rights and fundamental freedoms.⁴⁰⁶ As a support to the fulfilment of those obligations and as a supplement to the mechanisms provided for in the BiH Constitution and Annexes to the GFAP, the Commission on Human Rights was established, consisting of international representatives as well.⁴⁰⁷ This Commission should not be mistaken for the Human Rights Commission within the Constitutional Court of BiH, which originated from the Human Rights Chamber. The commission established pursuant to Annex 6 consisted of two parts: the Office of the Ombudsman and the Human Rights Chamber and it relied on the model applied in Strasbourg (Commission-Court) and was designed to be a unique institution, but in practice it transformed into two divided organisational institutions.⁴⁰⁸

In some earlier proposals for the constitutional arrangements (pre- Dayton), except for the Ombudsman, there were talks about establishing a human rights court as a last judicial instance to which all other state courts would be subordinated (including the Constitutional Court) when it comes to the field of human rights. There was a plan for this court – until such time as Bosnia and Herzegovina is admitted to the Council of Europe – to be consisted of mainly international judges and to function only up until the time of BiH admission to the Council of Europe. However, in Dayton, both institutions were excluded from the direct constitutional framework and were transferred to Annex 6. As to Annex 4, the consequences of this exclusion were not precisely explained, and the same occurred with Annexes 3 and 7, which are also very important to the Constitution,⁴⁰⁹ and this caused conflicts over the competencies between the authorities referred to in different annexes. In the end, the plan relating to the character of the court as a last judicial instance for human right issues was given up as well. Instead, a widely placed norm on competencies was introduced.⁴¹⁰