His Excellency Ambassador Brian Aggeler, Head of the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), visited the Constitutional Court of BiH with his associates today.
The Ambassador was welcomed by Ms. Seada Palavrić, President of the Constitutional Court, and her associates. President presented the work of the Constitutional Court of BiH in the period following the Ambassador’s visit in May this year.
In this connection, President pointed to the lack of understanding of other BiH institutions with regard to the financing of the Constitutional Court and to the conduct that makes the Constitutional Court and its judges dependent on the executive power. This, in fact, threatens their autonomy and independence.
When asked by the Ambassador as to the functioning of the Constitutional Court in the current conditions, President Palavrić emphasized the invaluable role of the international judges who have been fully involved not only in the work on cases from the abstract review of constitutionality, but also on cases from the appellate jurisdiction. President emphasized that, while the Constitution stipulates members of the Constitutional Court of BiH shall include 1/3 of international judges and 2/3 of national judges, thus enabling national judges to make any decision without the votes of international judges, the fact is that the Constitutional Court could not have functioned at all due to the failure to elect new national judges. That has been the case for the past two years.
President also emphasized that the Constitutional Court manages to decide barely 1/3 of the cases at this pace by working only in plenary sessions, compared to the number of appeals that reach the Constitutional Court every day. Thus, currently there are about 10,000 pending cases in the Constitutional Court relating to the appellate jurisdiction and they directly concern citizens individually. Out of these, 4,000 cases are ready waiting for the election of the national judges (two from the RS and one judge from the FBiH to replace Ms. Palavrić who turns 70 in two months).
Ambassador Aggeler showed great understanding for the circumstances under which the Constitutional Court of BiH is working, expressing willingness of the OSCE Mission to BiH to assist the Constitutional Court in its work in every way within the Mission’s competence. To begin with, the OSCE's assistance in the implementation of the "Improving the Cyber Security of the Constitutional Court" project has been agreed. This is a burning issue for the Constitutional Court as there are no funds for this purpose in the budget for the Constitutional Court.
In the end, it was concluded that meetings of this sort would continue.
