The Constitutional Court of BiH held today its regular 23rd 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.
The Constitutional Court of BiH reiterated that this legal issue was constantly present in practice and that courts and administrative authorities fail to consider sufficiently the standards under Article II(3)(e) of the Constitution of BiH and Article 6 paragraph 1 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
Thus, the problem of adopting decision within reasonable time limit is constantly present in the court practice in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The consequence of such state, inter alia, is a great number of appeals lodged with the Constitutional Court of BiH, in regards to a right to fair trial, particularly in the part relating to failure to adopt decisions within reasonable time limit.
The Court rejected a number of decisions which rejected the appeals as inadmissible which were, manifestly prima facie ill-founded. 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.
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.
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(5) 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.
All decisions adopted at the session shall be published on the webpage of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina within a time limit of one month, following the delivery to the appellants.
