Commissioner for Protection of Equality Brankica Jankovic attended international conference in Sarajevo “10 Years Against Discrimination in Bosnia and Herzegovina”, where she presented a well-developed practice of protection against discrimination in Serbia and high percentage of actions made in accordance with recommendation given by Commissioner for Protection of Equality in the Republic of Serbia.
Congratulating the 10th work anniversary to the colleagues from the institution of Human Rights Ombudsman of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Commissioner showed appreciation to organizers of this conference, OSCE Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, emphasizing the good cooperation with OSCE Mission in Serbia and stressed that this event is a good opportunity for all key stakeholders at local and regional level to exchange opinions and experiences related to implementation of anti-discrimination legislative.
At the panel “Role of human rights protecting mechanisms for protection of discrimination and effects of recommendations” Jankovic reminded that at the end of March there will be 10 years since Serbia has adopted the Law on the Prohibition of Discrimination and constituted national institution for protecting equality one year later. She said that number of Commissioner’s cases is increasing year after year, which also means that citizens recognize to who they can appeal and that the visibility of institution, as well as the trust in its work, is growing.
Countries in our region, as well as in Europe, are facing many challenges such are misunderstanding of discrimination, visibility of the institution, expectations by citizens and various social and political actors, finances, said Commissioner.
Among other participants at the international conference in Sarajevo were also Head of OSCE Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina Bruce Berton, Head of Office of the Council of Europe in Bosnia and Herzegovina Drahoslav Stefanek, President of Constitutional Court in Bosnia and Herzegovina Zlatko M. Knezevic, Human Rights and Freedoms Ombudsman of Montenegro Sucko Bakovic, representatives of Northern Macedonia Ombudsman and many others.
