The Constitutional Court of BiH held today its regular 37th session of the Grand Chamber.
Pursuant to Article 18(3) of the Rules of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Constitutional Court rejected a number of appeals lodged in an untimely fashion, either 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 on admissibility and merits within a 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.
For the illustration purposes, we note the following:
Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina dismissed as ill-founded the appeal of Mr. Milenko Vračar against the judgment of the County Court in Banja Luka dismissing the appellant’s claim that the defendants are obligated to pay out jointly the appellant a certain amount of money as a compensation for non-pecuniary damages for defamation due to dissemination of untrue assertions published in the daily paper Nezavisne novine. The Constitutional Court concluded there is no violation of a private and family life under Article II(3)(f) of the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Article 8 of the European Convention since the regular court has given gave a clear reasoning for the conclusions in the challenged judgment that the disputed expression does not represent untrue facts but value judgment which is supported in the facts and that a fair balance has been achieved between the appellant’s right to a protection of reputation and the defendants’ right to freedom of expression.
The Court adopted 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 are to 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.
