The Bosnian Constitution, drafted during peace talks in 1995, restricts the highest offices of state to members of three ethnic and religious groups – Bosnian Muslims, Serbs and Croats. The constitution was devised to avoid ethnic strife, following a bloody civil war that ravaged the country from 1992 to 1995.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2009 that the exclusion of Jews and Roma from Bosnia's highest state offices is unlawful discrimination.
Jakob Finci, a Bosnian Jewish lawyer who filed the lawsuit, told JTA that “nothing has been done” since the ruling. He filed it along with a Roma colleague.
“Being a small group of 1,000 Jews, we do not have any power to change this,” Finci said. "[It’s up to] the Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in which we do not have even one representative.”
Bosnian politicians mull ending constitutional discrimination of Jews, Roma - Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper
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