Bosnia Mulls Election Ban on War Crimes Convicts

The Bosnian parliament. Photo: Flickr.

The amendment proposed by MP Denis Becirovic, which is expected to be put on the state parliament’s agenda, stipulates that war crimes convicts cannot run for election, be appointed to any official position in the state, cantonal or municipal administrations, or carrying out any official function connected to elections.

The existing electoral legislation allows people who were convicted to run in elections after their release.

At the last elections, Fikret Abdic, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for committing war crimes, was elected mayor of Velika Kladusa.

Munira Subasic, the president of the Mothers of Srebrenica and Zepa Enclaves association, welcomed the proposal.

“We consider that people charged with or sentenced for war crime should not run for election, because they have never repented or apologised to the victims,” Subasic said.

“When a war crime convict wins elections, it is an absolute injustice towards the victims, humankind and justice,” she added.

The president of the Association of Families of the Missing Persons from Sarajevo-Romanija Region, Milan Mandic, argued that the ban should be even tougher.

“No matter which side they fought for and how long their prison sentences were, they should be expelled from society, stripped of their right to vote, deprived of everything,” Mandic said.

But Nedeljko Mitrovic, president of the Association of Families of Captured and Killed Soldiers and Missing Civilians of [Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity] Republika Srpska, said he was against the proposed legal change.

“I would support the proposal if the process of determining [the truth about] war crimes was finished. Certain individuals, who have not been charged so far, move around freely, but we know they committed crimes. They can run for election, while someone who accidentally was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was sentenced to one year in prison cannot,” Mitrovic said.

“Besides that, it would mean that those persons are deprived of their basic rights; they made mistakes, they were tried and have already been punished,” he added.

Nikola Lovrinovic, an MP in the state parliament, also argued that people who have completed their jail time should not be prevented from taking a full part in the democratic process.

“If somebody is a free citizen who has served his sentence and enjoys human rights, you cannot violate one of his rights in order to do justice to some other people who have already been deprived of those rights,” Lovrinovic said.

But Maja Gasal-Vrazalica of the Democratic Front party insisted that it was unacceptable for war crimes convicts to hold public office.

“By allowing war-crime convicts to perform public functions, we show the next generation that the crimes were not so grave and minimise the biggest and gravest act a human being can commit,” Gasal-Vrazalica said.