In May 2011, the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina declared the law on Unique Master Citizen Numbers (JMBG), which is needed to request passports and other administrative documents, was unconstitutional, due to the fact that one of its articles did not contain the new names of a handful of municipalities in the Serb entity, Republika Srpska.

But as the six-month period elapsed and no decision was reached by parliament members, the Court suspended the law altogether in January 2013.

As a result of the blocked legislation, babies born after February 2013 did not have passports or health insurance because those demand a personal ID number.

[2] Young mothers with babies without personal documents pushed their carriages between protesters and special police forces, while Sarajevo cabdrivers blocked streets around the building.

[2] At the midst of the protests, on 16 June 2013, three-month old Berina Hamidović died as a result of being denied entry into neighboring Serbia for emergency medical care because the infant couldn't get a passport due to not being granted an identification number.