Two days and two rounds of voting were needed to decide between the candidates for the post of Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe, and it was by a slim lead that the candidate from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dunja Mijatović, was elected at the end of Wednesday.
With 107 votes, she arrived ahead of Pierre-Yves Le Borgn’ from France (who had 103 votes) and Goran Klemencic from Slovenia (who had 19 votes).
Observers consider the choice of Mijatović as boding well. She will be the first woman elected to this post and her commitment to the defence of fundamental rights is unanimously hailed.
A graduate in European Studies from the University of Sarajevo, the city where she was born in 1964, the new commissioner has been dedicated to the respect of human rights and working with international institutions – including the Council of Europe – since the wars in the former Yugoslavia. From 2010 to 2017, she held the post of media freedom representative at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), where she started a reflection process on the online fight against radicalisation and terrorism to preserve human rights.
Mijatović will take up office in April, at the end of the non-renewable six-year term of office held by the current commissioner for human rights, Nils Muiznieks from Latvia. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)