The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has elected Bosnian Dunja Mijatovic as the new Council of Europe commissioner for human rights.
Mijatovic was elected for a nonrenewable term of six years starting on 1 April 2018. She replaces Latvian Nils Muiznieks.
Mijatovic garnered 107 votes in the second round of voting, while Frenchman Pierre-Yves Le Borgn’ obtained 103 votes and Goran Klemencic from Slovenia was given 19 votes, PACE said in a statement.
Mijatovic was the OSCE representative on freedom of the media from 2010 to 2017.
Before that, she was Director of Broadcasting at the Communications Regulatory Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CRA).
The Commissioner for Human Rights is an independent and impartial nonjudicial institution established in 1999 by the Council of Europe and tasked mainly with promoting awareness of and respect for human rights in the 47 Council of Europe member states.