The Constitutional Court of BiH held today its regular 21st session of the Grand Chamber.
Deciding on the appeals in regards to Article II(3)(e) of the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Article 6 paragraph 1 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in relation to adoption of decision within reasonable time-limit, the Court adopted a number of decisions establishing a violation of the appellants’ rights to a fair trial and dismissed a number of appeals as ill-founded in cases in which it found no such violation.
In all cases in which it found there was a violation of the appellants’ right to a fair trial, the competent courts or administrative authorities were ordered to complete the proceedings urgently and inform the Constitutional Court of BiH, in line with Article 72(4) of the Rules of the Constitutional Court of BiH, within three months from the date of submission of decision, on the measures taken to enforce the decisions.
For the illustration purposes, we present the following:
The Constitutional Court of BiH granted the appeal submitted by Ms. Zehra Muratovic for the length of administrative proceedings pending before the Ministry for Refugees and Displaced Persons of the Republika Srpska.
Appellant emphasized in the appeal lodged with the Constitutional Court of BiH that due to length of the proceedings, pending longer than fifteen years i.e. longer than eleven years as appellant entered into proceedings as the party to the proceedings, there was a violation of her right to fair trial, right to private and family life, home and correspondence, right to property, right to non-discrimination and right as refugee and displaced person under Article II(3)(e), (f) and (k) and Article II(4) and II(5) of the Constitution of BiH i.e. Article 6 paragraph 1 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Article 1 of Protocol no. 1 to the European Convention and Article 1 of the Agreement on Human Rights.
Administrative proceedings (request for repossession of the apartment) was initiated before the Ministry for Refugees and Displaced Persons – Department Banja Luka, on 14 June 1999.
Constitutional Court of BiH established a violation of the right to a fair trial under Article II(3)(e) of the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Article 6 paragraph 1 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in relation to the length of the proceedings of the administrative proceedings pending before the Ministry for Refugees and Displaced Persons of the Republika Srpska and ordered the Ministry for Refugees and Displaced persons of RS to urgently, when conditions are met, complete the administrative proceedings in accordance with Article II(3)(e) of the Constitutional of BiH and Article 6 paragraph 1 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
Constitutional Court of BiH ordered the Government of Republika Srpska to pay out to Ms. Zehra Muratovic, for violation of the right to decision within reasonable time-limit, as a compensation for non-pecuniary damages the amount of 2,250.00KM, including default interest rate incurred after expiration of the time limit, within three months from the submission of decision.
Constitutional Court of BiH ordered the Government of Republika Srpska and Ministry for Refugees and Displaced Persons of RS to inform the Constitutional Court of BiH on measures taken with an aim to enforce this decision within six months from the date of submission of this decision.
Inter alia, in accordance with Article 18(3) of the Rules of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Court rejected a number of appeals lodged in an untimely fashion, after the expiration of the time-limit for submitting appeal or prematurely in cases in which it was established that the appellants failed to use all available legal remedies in the preceding proceedings.
The Court adopted a greater number of decisions in which appeals were rejected as inadmissible which are manifestly prima facie ill-founded as the requests of appellants were not justified i.e. the facts the appellants presented to the Court in those cases could not have in any manner justified the claim of the appellants that there is a violation of their rights protected by the Constitution or that the parties in the proceedings bear consequences of violation of rights protected by the Constitution.
All decisions adopted at the session shall be submitted to the appellants within a time limit of one month and posted on the official website of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
