The Grand Chamber of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina held today its 62nd ordinary session.
The Court considered a number of appeals on purported violations of appellants’ human rights and fundamental freedoms, which were, according to the appellants, committed by ordinary courts.
Deciding on the admissibility and merits of the appeals related to 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 i.e. the right to have a decision adopted within a reasonable time, the Constitutional Court passed a number of decisions finding a violation of the appellants’ right to a fair trial and dismissed, as ill-founded, a number of the appeals where it found no violation.
In the cases where the Constitutional Court found a violation of the appellants’ right to a fair trial, the competent courts and administrative bodies were ordered to complete proceedings urgently and to inform the Court, within three months as from the date of delivery of the relevant decisions, of the measures taken to execute those decisions.
We once again highlight the problem related to the failure to satisfy the “reasonable time” requirement, i.e. practice that the courts and administrative authorities, for different reasons, do not adhere to the standards of the right to a fair trial from 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. Consequently, the aforementioned problem is present, to a considerable extent, in the judicial practice in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The result of the aforesaid is a significant number of appeals filed with the Constitutional Court of BiH in respect of the right to a fair trial, in particular in respect of the right to have a decision adopted within a reasonable time.
Pursuant to 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 appeals, or prematurely in cases in which it was established that the appellants failed to use all available legal remedies in the previous proceedings.
In certain number of cases the Court rejected the appeals which were manifestly (prima facie) ill-founded and inadmissible. This relates to the cases in which the courts established that the appellants’ requests were not justified i.e. that the facts the appellants presented to the Court could not in any manner justify the claim of the appellants on the existence of violation of their rights protected by the Constitution or that the parties to the proceedings do not bear consequences of the violation of the alleged rights as protected by the Constitution.
All decisions adopted at the session will be delivered to the appellants within one month and will be available at the website of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
