iii. Annex 7 – Repossession of JNA apartments

Special rules apply to the former officers of the JNA. In principle, the issue relates to Article 3(a) of the Law on the Cessation of Application of the Law on Abandoned Apartments (insofar as the socially owned apartments are concerned) and Article 39(e) of the Law on Sale of Apartments with Occupancy Rights (insofar as the purchased apartments are concerned, which means privately owned apartments). The owner of a JNA apartment can only be a person who concluded an appropriate contract on the purchase of an apartment and who paid the purchase price.¹⁶¹⁷ The Law on the Cessation of Application of the Law on Abandoned Apartments in its original form prescribed two requirements for repossession of JNA apartments: BiH citizenship and the condition that he/she was not in active service in the JNA on 30 April 1991. Both the Human Rights Chamber and the Human Rights Commission within the BiH Constitutional Court established that neither of these two requirements were in accordance with the right to home.¹⁶¹⁸ The result of these decisions was the fact that the Federation of BiH amended the legal regulations so as to forbid the repossession of socially owned apartment if the officer of the JNA was in active service on 19 May 1992 and, in case of purchased apartments, on 14 December 1995. The BiH Constitutional Court and the Human Rights Commission within the BiH Constitutional Court established that these requirements met the standards relating to the constitutional human rights and freedoms.¹⁶¹⁹ However, the State is obliged to pay a just compensation to the owners of the apartments, who do not fulfil the requirements for repossession.¹⁶²⁰ In principle, the justification for such a legal solution is the fact that such persons could not be considered displaced persons and refugees.

This was the first exception to the rule according to which persons who left their apartments between 30 April 1991 and 19 December 1998 shall be considered refugees and displaced persons. The next exception provided for by the law, although declared consistent with the ECHR, is deprivation or non-return of JNA socially-owned apartments if meanwhile another socially owned apartment was allocated to the claimant outside Bosnia and Herzegovina.¹⁶²¹ In case the occupancy right holder does not fulfil the requirements for repossessing the apartment, his spouse shares the same destiny.¹⁶²²