40% of Women in the Council of Ministers of BiH

On the suggestion of Sarajevo Open Centre and Agency for Gender Equality of BiH, BiH Parliamentary Assembly’s Committee on Gender Equality sent into the parliamentary procedure the Draft of Amendments to the Law on the Council of Ministers. These amendments predicts that the Council of Ministers must be composed by at least 40 percent of both sexes.

If suggested Amendments would be adopted, the Law on Council of Ministers would be in accordance with the Gender Equality Law in BiH. In the article 32 paragraph 2 the Gender Equality Law in BiH predicts the obligation that other state and entity laws must be in accordance with this law.

The adoption of these amendments in practice means that BiH Parliamentary Assembly’s Representatives House would not be able to confirm naming of the Council of Ministers of BiH if there is no gender equality reflected in convocation. If these amendments would be adopted, they would be implemented after the B&H General elections in 2018.

On the necessity of adopting the Amendments to the Law on Council of Ministers is showed in fact that the Council of Ministers BiH, the highest executive office in the land, had only four women ministers (Bisera Turković was a two-term Minister for European Integration, Azra Hadžiahmetović and Mila Gadžić were both ministers of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations, and Ljerka Marić was the Minister of Finance) in the 1997 – 2014 period. Not a single woman has been the President, nor the Vice President of the Council of Ministers BiH, since its inception. There are only two women in the current convocation of the Council of Ministers of BiH. These women are Marina Pendeš, the Minister of Defence of BiH and Semiha Borovac Minister of Human Rights and Refugees of BiH.