Ferizovic, Jasenka. 2011. , Jasenka. 2011. Transitional Justice Legislation in Bosnia and Herzegovina: 1995-2011. Working Paper. [Report]

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Abstract or Description

Working Paper, ERC project ‘Bosnian Bones, Spanish Ghosts

By providing chronological overview of select legislation passed in Bosnia and Herzegovina since 1995 at each of its 14 levels of government, including decisions of the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, this document makes up one of outputs of the BBSG work package dedicated to identification of significant moments of post-war legal activity. Apart from legislation commonly considered to be crucial in all transitional societies, the database also contains pieces of legislation which at first glance may seem trivial, but which, due to their impact on everyday life of common people, could be reasonably expected to have great influence on their understanding of what facilitates transitional justice. Therefore, besides laws traditionally falling within notion of ‘transitional’ legislation (such as, for instance, laws related to war crimes prosecution, electoral, or constitutional reform), this database includes post-war legislation regulating social rights of vulnerable categories of population, education, labor rights, privatization, housing-related issues, health care, etc. Additionally, it comprises secondary legislation which, by further elaboration of procedural and other relevant issues that have not been regulated by laws themselves, enables their application. The database also contains several resolutions and declarations reflecting political dissents between entities on issues such as recognition of genocide in Srebrenica, or, for instance, attitudes of entities/cantons towards cooperation with the ICTY, or towards certain acts of politicians, etc. However, in order to reach complete and proper understanding of factors influencing ‘legal’ shaping of cultural memory in Bosnia and Herzegovina, following compilation of significant legal ‘landmarks’ needs to be observed in the context of information coming in from the BBSG field-deployed team. Results of the field research should show how people actually understand and which legislation they associate with the concept of transitional justice.

The database consists of four parts. The first one contains legislation enacted by legislative bodies of the State of Bosnia and Herzegovina, its Entities and Brčko district of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The second and the third part comprise cantonal legislation. The fourth part contains decisions passed by the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina. The database is organized in a way that makes it possible to simultaneously examine legislative activity at various levels of government by year. Footnotes contain information on number of official gazette in which each piece of legislation, amendments and changes to it were published.

Apart from being one of the resources of this particular project, this compilation could (and I certainly hope it will) also be useful to other, both international and local researchers and scientists, as well as to anyone else simply looking for the easiest and most time-saving way to find information on specific piece of legislation.
Finally, I would like to use this opportunity to express my gratitude to Miss Elma Demir for her efforts to collect all chronological registers of official gazettes published throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina during past 15 years, without which compilation of this database would not be possible.

Item Type:	Report (Working Paper)
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	Sociology > Research students
Date:	2011
Item ID:	13867
Date Deposited:	05 Oct 2015 14:52
Last Modified:	13 Jun 2016 14:48
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/13867

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