The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina held today its regular 24^th session of the Grand Chamber.

 

The Constitutional Court, inter alia, decided a number of appeals alleging violation of the appellants’ right to a fair trial.

As regards the cases where the Court found a violation of the appellants’ right to a fair trial because the courts failed to render their decisions within a reasonable period of time (Article II(3)(e) of the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Article 6(1) of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms), the competent courts were ordered to urgently conclude the proceeding and inform the Court about that within a reasonable period of time.

The Court dealt with a large number of other appeals lodged on the ground that the appellants’ constitutional rights were allegedly violated by ordinary courts.

For the illustration purposes, we present the following:

The Court partially granted the appeals of Messrs. Edin Arslanagic, Amar Arslanagic, Sefik Handzic and Hasan Sepa lodged against the rulings of the Cantonal Court in Sarajevo and Supreme Court of F BiH rendered in the proceedings of ordering and extending the detention. In the mentioned case, the Court found a violation of the right under Article II(3)(d) of the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Article 5 (3) in conjunction with paragraph 1(c) of the European Convention with regards to the first appellant (Edin Arslanagic) as a person deprived of liberty and against whom the detention was ordered without him being immediately brought before a judge for the hearing purposes as regards the circumstances constituting the grounds for which the detention was ordered. Also, the Constitutional Court concluded that there is a violation of the right under Article II(3)(d) of the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Article 5 (3) in conjunction with paragraph 1(c) of the European Convention in cases where the decisions on ordering and extending the detention, despite the fact that they contain sufficient and clear reasons for the existence of a reasonable doubt that the appellants had committed criminal offences they were charged with as a special ground for ordering detention, do not contain, at the same time, sufficient and clear reasons to justify the existence of the special ground for detention under Article 146 (1) item d) of the Criminal Procedure Code of F BiH.

In a certain number of cases, the Constitutional Court rejected appeals that were manifestly (prima facie) ill-founded and inadmissible. This relates to the cases in which the Court establishes that 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.

During the today's session several decisions were adopted rejecting the requests for review of constitutionality as they were submitted by unauthorised persons.

The Constitutional Court dismissed several requests submitted by the Government of the Federation of BiH for review of the decisions previously adopted by the Constitutional Court of BiH on the appeals relating to the right to “military apartments“. As regards the requests for review, the Government of the Federation of BiH alleged that there have been new facts relating to the circumstance that the appellants, in the meantime, had acquired another occupancy right or an equivalent right in some other countries. However, the Constitutional Court is not competent to decide those facts but the Federation of BiH shall be mindful of those facts in the proceedings of rendering decisions about the relevant right and the amount of compensation in the cases of “military apartments” in accordance with the previous decisions of the Constitutional Court.