Bosnian Jews up in arms about new restitution law
Jewish groups are troubled by a new property restitution law in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina that officially discriminates in favor of the country's Muslims.A law passed earlier this month allows people living in state-owned apartments that were nationalized under the former Yugoslavia's socialist regime to purchase the dwellings. But the law - backed by lawmakers from the country's Muslim majority - provides that any apartment previously owned by the Muslim community cannot be purchased if the community objects to the sale.
"Holders of tenant's tenure for apartments whose formal owners are wakfs can not buy up those apartments without previous written approval of the apartment's owner," the law states, using the Arabic word for a Muslim community endowment.
The Jewish community, as well as the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, was not given the same veto power.
A protest letter to the government and various international authorities from The Inter-Religious Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina states, "One of the fundamental principles of justice, equity and of the democracy in which we would like to believe is equality before the law. Unfortunately, this law definitely violates this principle."
A group of ethnic Croatian lawmakers has challenged the law in the Constitutional Court, which should rule on it shortly, according to Bosnia-based diplomats.
The law has generated concern over the future of private-property return in Bosnia and Herzegovina at a time when the government is still formulating its approach to restitution.
The law would mean that Holocaust survivors or their heirs wouldn't obtain fair compensation for their former property, according to Jakub Finci, chairman of the country's small Jewish community.
"I think it's another injustice done not only to Jews but all other former owners who waited 50 years to get back their property," Finci said.
The Inter-Religious Council, which includes Jewish, Muslim, Catholic and Orthodox representatives, says the legislation would leave people whose apartments were nationalized with little possibility of regaining their property.
Council members object to any legislation that prevents the return of private property to its pre-World War II owners, and point out that the law contravenes the rules of the Council of Europe, the European Convention on Universal Human Rights and other European norms that Bosnia and Herzegovina has agreed to uphold.
A human rights experts at a Western embassy who would speak only on background said he expected the constitutional court to strike down the legislation, "as it is so blatantly discriminatory."
With parliamentary elections looming in October, legislators who backed the apartment law were seeking to gain votes from the vast number of people who still live in state-owned apartments, Finci said.
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