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, on admissibility and merits, 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.
For the illustration purposes we highlight the following:
Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina dismissed as ill-founded the appeal of Mr. Bakir Dautbasic and Bilsena Sahman lodged against the ruling of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina on detention (no. S1 2 K 020433 16Kv of 15 January 2016 and S12 K 020433 16Krn 2 of 12 January 2016) in relation to the right to freedom and security and in relating to prohibition of violation of the presumption of innocence within the right to a fair trial and rejected the appeal as being premature in relation to other aspects of the right to a fair trial. Constitutional Court reiterated in its decision that at the moment of determining the detention, it is not necessary that it is ascertained with certainty that the criminal offence has indeed been committed and its nature must not be determined.
As to the special detention reasons, the presence of concern that that appellant will disrupt the criminal proceedings, i.e. repeat or complete the attempted criminal offence, the Constitutional Court finds that the reasoning of the challenged rulings, as opposed to the allegations of the appellant, in this part do not give an impression of arbitrariness and that they are based on sufficiently clear, well-supported and individualized reasons. Constitutional Court concludes that there was no violation of the presumption of innocence principle within the right of a fair trial in the situation when ordinary courts, by disputed statement, in the challenged rulings, which the appellants bring into context of reasoning of special detention reasons, have not presumed the appellants’ culpability, i.e. that the contents of joint press release of the Court of BiH and Prosecutor’s Office of 14 January 2016 do not represent a statement on the appellant’s culpability. The compliance with the right to a fair trial in other aspects may be reviewed only in relation to the proceedings of determination of the criminal charges as a whole, thus when the decision becomes final so that in this stage of the proceedings the appeal in this part is rejected as being premature.
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, within three months from the date of submission of decision, on the measures taken to enforce the decisions.
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 to the proceedings bear the consequences of violation of rights protected by the Constitution.
All decisions taken at the session shall be delivered to the appellants within a time-limit of one month and posted on the official website of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
