The first public tribune within this project was held on May 24, 2007 in Sarajevo, at 11 o’clock, in the hall of the hotel "Hollywood".
Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in BiH is the partner organisation is Sarajevo which is supporting this project and assisted FTC in the organisation of the public tribune.

The speakers at the public tribune were members of the expert team – Mr Vehid Sehic, lawyer, the President of FTC and Mr Sahbaz Djihanovic, lawyer, former deputy president of F BiH.

Mr Sehic informed participants about the short-term and long-term objectives of the project that want to be achieved through the implementation of the project and he also pointed out that the basic aim of this project is respecting of the article 2 of the European Charter on Local Government. According to this article, signatory-countries are obliged to regulate regulations from The Charter in their own legislation, and if possible in the constitution, which is not the case in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Namely, local government in Bosnia and Herzegovina is exclusively in the jurisdiction of entities, although European Charter on Local Government had been signed and ratified even two times by BiH state. First time by Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and later on, after Dayton Peace Agreement, by state of Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to that, entity jurisdiction for regulation of the local government have led to differences in regulative, which resulted in inequality of the local communities and its citizens at the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Accordingly, bringing of the Law at the state level is aimed to abolish inequality in the position of the local communities and its citizens, which is created through entity legislative.
Mr Sehic also pointed put that one of the aims of this project is to enable local authorities and its citizens to implement not only inter-entity cooperation of the local communities, but also creation of the legal conditions for establishment of the regional cooperation of the local communities. Before creation of the new states at the territory of former Yugoslavia, these local communities were connected and dependent from each other in many ways – cultural, economical, infrastructural – in satisfying the needs and interests of the citizens of these local communities. Nowadays, that is completely impossible due to lack of political will and legal conditions and procedures for establishment of such relations.
In addition, Mr Sehic said that FTC will insist on involvement of the Council of Europe in this project, which accepted and permitted regulation of the local government at the entity level, which is collision with article 2 of the European Charter on Local Government. Due to this, FTC will ask for their cooperation and support to this initiative.

The second speaker, Mr Djihanovic informed participants about too complicated legal structure of BiH state, pointing out that it has 14 constitutions and two statutes of the cities – Brcko District and City of Mostar. State of BiH, in fulfilling conditions for entrance into the Council of Europe, passes many laws that are very often in collision with each other. These laws are mostly passed due to official and legal reasons, without the will of the politicians to implement these laws. According to Mr Djihanovic, those are the reasons why reform processes cannot be efficient.
Mr Djihanovic believes that this FTC’s initiative is the essential need of the citizens, i.e. of what everyday life requires. He added that nowadays, local communities have official and legal rights and obligations to solve the biggest part of the everyday needs of citizens. Local communities have many obligations that are not followed by harmonised legal regulative or financial means that the local authorities could realise them. Mayors, as the carriers of the development of the local community and society in general as it is established by the Charter, do not have legal mechanisms to influence policy making, not even in their environment, or at the higher levels of the authorities, i.e. state. Due to the state structure and lack of state institution – authorised ministry, municipalities do not have possibility to apply to European funds for development and support. That is why, believes Mr Djihanovic, the Ministry for Local Government should be and has to be at the state level in order to overcome this problem.

After these two introductory speeches, each of the participants presented their attitude and opinion or gave some proposal.

20 participants participated in the public tribune. Participants were carriers of the executive or legislative authorities of the local communities from Sarajevo Canton. Besides several Mayors, mostly there were secretaries of the municipal councils, as well as the professionals from legislation body, chair-persons of the council and several councillors. Secretary of the Association of the Municipalities and Cities, Mr Anton Stitic, also participated in the public tribune.

All participants totally supported the initiative of FTC. They specially showed the gratitude for the working material, i.e. booklet prepared by FTC, which consist the European Charter on Local Government and both entity laws on local government.

In the discussion, participants pointed out existence of many political municipalities in BiH that are established after the war, which nowadays do not have economical justification of existence, as the basic European standard for establishment of the local community. The estimation of the participants is that 30ish municipalities out of 142 in BiH do not have economical justification of the existence, but only ethnical and political purpose. Even today, lot of financial means from the budgets of the higher levels of the authorities are given to these municipalities.
The proposals of the participants of the public tribune for the future draft of the law were directed toward establishment of standards set out in the European Charter as conditions for establishment of the local communities. In this way, spending of the financial means from the budgets of the higher levels of the authorities on the work and functioning of such municipalities.
All the participants also pointed out necessity for more transparent allocation and spending of the means collected from VAT. Namely, nowadays, neither citizens nor lower levels of the authorities do not get any kind of information in which way and how much of the VAT means are spent. Participants of the tribune pointed out that the draft of this law should have definition of the jurisdiction of the municipalities and cities, especially when it is about local economical development of the local communities.

After more than two hours of the discussion, unique conclusion could be drawn out:
- all the participants of the tribune believe that draft of the law should consist regulations of the Charter itself, especially obligatory articles 2, 9 and 12, since they would introduce, through this law at the state level, European standards. Above all, the right of the municipalities on access to the national capital, since they do not have it now. This would mean that municipalities, as the local communities, have right to access the national market and funds.
- also, the regulations of this law must have regulations and mechanisms for obligatory application and implementation.