Laws on enforcement procedure in Bosnia and Herzegovina: compliance with the European human rights standards

Laws on enforcement of Republika Srpska and Federacija BiH limit or completely prohibit enforcement against the state debt. It should be noted that the notion of the state for the purpose of this paper includes not only federal or federal unit authorities but also local self-government, public institutions and state-owned (controlled) enterprises. These limitations on enforcement concern every object of enforcement. I argue that such rules of enforcement limitation do not fulfill the requirement of lawfulness developed by the European Court of Human Rights, because they are vague and non-predictable and they put an excessive burden on enforcement creditor within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol 1 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Thus, I argue that it is necessary to harmonize the terminology within the legislation; to give more specific guidelines for determining whether some property can be the object of enforcement; to clearly stipulate that the only competent authority to determine whether or not certain enforcement can be carried out is the court. The aim of the proposed solutions is to harmonize national legislation with the ECHR and to reduce the possibility of state abuse of rights.