European court condemns Bosnia for election discrimination
This amounted to discrimination in the southern town, which remains divided between ethnic Croats and Muslims since Bosnia's 1990s war, it ruled.
Mostar held its last municipal elections in 2008.
A 2010 ruling by Bosnia's constitutional court found that constituency boundaries and the allocation of councillors to constituencies were discriminatory.
But the authorities had failed to act on that ruling, the ECHR noted.
With the ethnic Croat and Muslim political parties unable to agree on reform, the last four-year mandate of the municipal council expired in 2012 and it had not sat since.
Mostar resident Irma Baralija lodged a complaint against Bosnia with the Strasbourg-based court in 2018.
Baralija, 34, a member of the multi-ethnic Nasa Stranka (Our Party) party, argued that she had been prevented from voting and standing in elections -- and the court agreed.
Bosnia has "failed to comply with its duty to take measures to protect Baralija from discriminatory treatment on the grounds of her place of residence and to hold democratic elections in Mostar," said a statement from the court.
If the Bosnian authorities failed to change the law to allow fair elections, the country's constitutional court had the power "to set up interim arrangements", the court added.
The ECHR ruling can be appealed by any party within a three-month period.
"We have won!" Baralija told reporters in Sarajevo after the judgement was announced.
"It means that the democracy will finally return to Mostar and that we will have the (municipal) elections next year."
Since 2008, Mostar has been governed by mayor Ljubo Beslic from the main ethnic Croat HDZ party, which the ECHR described as a "technical mandate" with no "democratic legitimacy".
The ECHR ruling indirectly concerns all voters in the town of 106,000 people.
According to the 2013 census, 48.4 percent of Mostar inhabitants are ethnic Croats and 44.2 percent are Muslims.
Bosnia's Croats and Muslims were allies against ethnic Serbs during most of the 1992-1995 war.
But the two communities also fought against each other for 11 months in 1993 and 1994.
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References
- ^ European Court of Human Rights (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
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