On 15 September 2016, the Constitutional Court of BiH held its regular 42nd session of the Grand Chamber.
The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, inter alia, was deciding the appeals in connection with 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 relating to adoption of decision on admissibility and merits within a reasonable time. While deciding the appeals, 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.
The following examples are presented only for illustrative purposes:
In cases AP 140/14 and AP 624/14, the Constitutional Court granted the appeals of the Republika Srpska filed against the decisions of the Republika Srpska’s ordinary courts, whereby the Republika Srpska was ordered to pay the plaintiffs the non-pecuniary damage as compensation for the loss of close relatives during the war conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The appellant indicated that there was arbitrary application of the substantive law, i.e. Article 377 of the Law on Obligations in a situation where there is a lack of non-appealable judgement of the criminal court, whereby the responsibility of a person would be established for the murder of close relatives of plaintiffs and that is the reason why the time-limits referred to under Article 377 of the Law on Obligations could not be applied. As to the mentioned case, the Constitutional Court found that there is a violation of the right to a fair trial because by arbitrary application of Article 377 of the Law on Obligations the courts dismissed the appellants’ objection of limitation relating to the non-pecuniary damage claims.
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. The appeals that were manifestly, prima facie, unfounded were dismissed by the Constitutional Court. The facts the appellants presented to the Court in those cases could in no way justify 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.
