Hate crime and hate speech are a significant problem in B&H. Despite the fact that these criminal offences are integrated in the criminal legislation in force in all four jurisdictions of B&H, the lack of understanding of those contemporary legal concepts and lack of significance of their adequate prosecution are still evident. In transitional, ethnically and religiously heterogeneous society, intensification of work on the issue of combating hate crime and hate speech as well as enhancement of the understanding of the key issues related to their legal regulation and prosecution in the B&H’s specific context are necessary steps in the process of finding better and more effective solutions in this area. Even though existing legal solutions enable distinction and prosecution of both, hate crime and hate speech, those terms are often used as synonyms. The equalization of those essentially different concepts has resulted in inadequate response of the justice system to those extremely harmful phenomena. Through the analysis of existing case law in all four jurisdictions in B&H that were conducted using the six elements test-the Article 19 in order to establish threshold of criminal liability, the authors will try to determine the extent of inadequate application of the existing legal framework by prosecutors and judges.