Centre for Civil Society- KYODO

Although the said Law in Bosnia and Herzegovina was passed in 2006 (published in the Official Gazette of BiH No. 25 of April 2006), its application was significantly delayed, and some provisions even today they did not live. The reason for this situation is that there are more, but it is certainly among the most important is the lack of education and the lack of information of the consumers themselves about the rights provided by this Law, which is why they can not demand their rights in the field of trade activity or the provision of services, or to do so in an efficient way.

We will mention only a few examples. According to the provisions of Art. Article 19 of the Law on the protection of producers, if the service is performed improperly or partially, the trader is obliged to renew or service the service, and to reduce the contracted price due to a lower quality. In practice, however, when it comes to economic services of general interest, for example, heating services provided by heating plants, through which the apartments of users should warm up, or water supply systems that supply the citizens with drinking water, it is a practice to provide citizens with both services invoices are flat either by the number of squares owned by their flats (heating plants) or by the number of family members (water) instead of actual consumption. As a rule, as indicated by the amount of invoices delivered monthly to the citizens for payment purposes, the services are only partially performed, therefore they are in contravention with the aforementioned Article of the Law, but citizens are obliged to pay them and in that way also pay part of the services that they did not get it.

The provisions of the Law on these services (economic services of general interest - Articles 33 to 35) provide that the services of heating and delivery of water are in the contractual relationship regime, and that the obligation of calculation or payment must relate only to actual delivery read on the consumer counter. As citizens do not own neither contracts nor meters (in addition to an extremely small number of those who have installed water consumption meters at their expense), this is a massive violation of the law and their human rights to their detriment.