Azra Zornić, a member of the Association of Independent Intellectuals “Circle 99” and an appellant before the European Court of Human Rights, filed a criminal complaint against Dragan Čović at the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo yesterday at 2 p.m.
Zornić confirmed this at today’s extraordinary press conference “Circle 99”, but she could not talk about the reasons or details of the application, as she said, for procedural reasons. She only explained to the journalists that it was about the non-implementation of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights in the case in which she was the appellant, i.e. in other cases from the “Sejdić and Finns” group.
Zornić pointed out that, from a legal point of view, there were no obstacles to the implementation of those judgments in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but in a political sense, she stated, it did not suit the ruling structures whose power rests on ethno-nationalist foundations.
As a legalist, she believes in the work of the Prosecutor’s Office and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, she also said and added that the decision to file a complaint against Dragan Čović was not made overnight, but matured after careful consultations within the association.
Zornić recalls the binding decision of the European Court from July 2014, which accepted her appeal.
She appealed in 2005 challenging the provisions of the preamble of the Dayton Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and consequently the Election Law. This refers to the provisions that state that Serbs, Bosniaks, Croats and Others live in Bosnia and Herzegovina, she recalled at today’s press conference.
– All of us who do not want to choose one of these three – I call them 2torovi” – belong to Others. What does Others mean? Are we second class citizens, do we have any rights in our homeland? All of us, in principle, are Bosnians or Herzegovinians by nationality because that is the name of our country. Any other affiliation is purely ethnic and every citizen has the right to it. Therefore, being Bosnian does not exclude anyone’s ethnic or other affiliation – said Zornić.
The final and binding decision of the European Court of Human Rights, which accepted her appeal, was made on July 15, 2014.
Photo ©️ Fena/Hazim Aljovic
