INSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS OMBUDSMAN OF BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA The Ombudsman was not consulted during this process, and it remains to be seen how this policy will be implemented in practice. 10.4. Individual examples of general interest 10.4.1. Mobbing Article 4 (3) of the Law on Prohibition of Discrimination in Bosnia and Herzegovina 469 provides that "mobbing is a form of non-physical harassment in the workplace which involves repetition of actions that have a degrading effect on the victim with the purpose or effect of degrading working conditions or the professional status of the employee." The specificity of mobbing is reflected in the fact that it constitutes a special form of discrimination for the existence of which no prohibited basis is required. An additional element that is necessary for the existence of a mobbing operation is the repetition of mobbing actions, that is, their performance over a long period. Repetition of actions implies the existence of temporal continuity 470. The law does not specify what time period it is, and therefore the Ombudsmen particularly appreciate whether it was more than one action that may have a degrading effect that occurs over a period of time. The fact is that there are many citizens who are exposed to mobbing today but do not turn to the Ombudsman Institution or seek judicial protection for fear that they may be out of work in that case. Victims of mobbing are also exposed to stress as mobbing has consequences for their health, and often complaints from psychologists, psychiatrists or other professionals are attached to complaints to the Ombudsman Institution. The mitigating circumstance for the victim of mobbing is reflected in the fact that the burden of proof lies with the alleged offender. In practice, the offender is a person in a position of power in relation to the victim and does his or her best to disprove the existence of mobbing, invoking his/her rights arising from various internal and general acts. Similar to the previous reporting period, citizens most often addressed the Ombudsman Institution because of the hostile workplace environment, insulting and humiliation by superiors, preventing promotion in the service, selective and incomplete exercise of employment rights with regard to annual leave, professional rights training and remuneration. The most commonly reported form of mobbing is the so-called vertical mobbing that exists when the superior abuses one particular worker, while a significantly smaller number of complaints relates to horizontal mobbing, i.e. mobbing between workers on equal footing in the hierarchical scale. In any case, the goal of mobbing is to force employees to leave the workplace and thus further degrade economically. The designated responsible authorities in their statements to the Ombudsman state that the complainant's allegations are untrue, that the transactions are sometimes carried out under changed conditions due to the specific nature of work processes ..., whereby the allegations and statements of the designated responsible party are counteracted and due to the lack 469 BiH Official Gazette, No. 59/09 and 66/16 There are also opinions of some experts that the condition of repetition, that is, continuity of mobbing operations is not necessary in each case, since mobbing can be carried out with only one action, provided that the effect of that action is long-term. 470 118