The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina held today its regular 26th session of the Grand Chamber.
Deciding on the requests of the appellants, the Court adopted a number of decisions rejecting as inadmissible the appeals which were manifestly prima facie ill-founded since the requests were not justified i.e. as the Court established that the facts the appellants presented to the Court 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.
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.
We reiterate that the Court observed that the issue of failure to adopt decision with reasonable time-limit is constantly present in the practice in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as courts and administrative authorities do not sufficiently take account of the standards under 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 consequence is, inter alia, that a great number of appeals is lodged with the Constitutional Court of BiH in relation to the right to a fair trial especially in the part relating to failure to adopt decision within reasonable time-limit.
In all cases in which the Constitutional Court 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, 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 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.
