KONGRESNA NARODNA STRANKA AND OTHERS v. BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
Inadmissible
Angelika Nußberger;Carlo Ranzoni;Erik Møse;Ganna Yudkivska;Khanlar Hajiyev;Síofra O’Leary
1. The applicants are the National Congress Party for the Protection of the Human Rights of War Veterans and Citizens, and of Justice and Morals in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Kongresna narodna stranka zaštite ljudskih prava boraca i građana, pravde i morala Bosne i Hercegovine; “the Party“) and 45 citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina (“the applicants“). A list of the applicants is set out in the appendix. 2. The applicants were granted leave by the President to be represented by the president of the Party and one of the applicants, Mr. E. Imširović (Rule 36 § 2 of the Rules of Court). The Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina (“the Government”) were represented by their Deputy Agent, Ms Z. Ibrahimović. 3. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows. 4. The Party was established on 25 December 1997 under the laws of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The applicants are members of the Party. 5. The Party participated in the 2006 elections for the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Almost all of its candidates declared themselves Bosniacs. 6. On 30 June 2010 the Party’s registration for the 2010 elections was refused because it was submitted out of time. The Party failed to lodge an appeal against that decision. 7. On 11 June 2014 the Party’s registration for the 2014 elections was refused for failure to comply with the procedural requirements (a failure to pay a required deposit and to submit a list of signatures in support of its candidacy). On 18 June 2014 that decision was upheld by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (“the State Court”). 8. The applicants claim that they do not declare affiliation with any of the “constituent peoples” (namely, Bosniacs, Croats and Serbs). They describe themselves as “a person from Tuzla”, “a Muslim”, “a Catholic”, “a person from Sarajevo”, “a person from Krajina”, “a person from Herzegovina”, “a refugee”, “a war veteran” and the like; while three of them describe themselves as belonging to the Roma and Albanian ethnic minorities respectively. 9. The relevant domestic law and practice and international documents were outlined in Sejdić and Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovina ([GC], nos. 27996/06 and 34836/06, ECHR 2009) and Zornić v. Bosnia and Herzegovina (no. 3681/06, 15 July 2014). Notably, the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina makes a distinction between members of “constituent peoples” (persons who declare affiliation with Bosniacs, Croats and Serbs) and “others” (members of ethnic minorities and persons who do not declare affiliation with any particular group because of intermarriage, mixed parenthood or other reasons). 10. In the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, a person’s ethnic affiliation was decided solely by that person, through a system of self-classification. Thus, no objective criteria such as knowledge of a certain language or belonging to a specific religion existed. Moreover, there was no requirement of acceptance by other members of the ethnic group in question. Since the Constitution contains no provisions regarding the determination of one’s ethnicity it appears that it was assumed that the traditional self-classification would suffice. 11. In accordance with the 1995 Constitution (Articles IV § 1 and V), only persons declaring affiliation with a “constituent people” are entitled to stand for election to the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly and the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina.