The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina held today its regular 50th session of the Grand Chamber.
The Constitutional Court rejected a number of appeals lodged in an untimely fashion, either after the expiration of time-limit for the submission of appeal or prematurely, in the cases in which it was established that the appellants failed to use all available legal remedies in the preceding proceedings.
The Constitutional Court adopted a number of decisions rejecting the appeals as inadmissible and 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 was a violation of their rights protected by the Constitution or that the parties to the proceedings bear the consequences of the violation of rights protected by the Constitution
The Constitutional Court, inter alia, decided on the appeals relating to Article II(3)(e) of the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Article 6(1) European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. In deciding on the appeals, the Constitutional Court adopted a number of decisions establishing a violation of the appellants’ rights to a fair trial and dismissed a certain number of appeals as ill-founded in cases in which it found no such violation.
It is observed that for different reasons the courts and administrative authorities do not abide, to a sufficient extent, by 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.
The result of the aforesaid is a significant number of appeals filed with the Constitutional Court of BiH with regards to the right to a fair trial, in particular with regards to non-adoption of decisions within reasonable time.
In the cases in which the Court established that there was a violation of the appellants’ right to a fair trial, the competent courts or administrative authorities were ordered to finalize the proceedings and to inform the Constitutional Court, within a time-limit of three months from the date of delivery of the relevant decisions, on the measures taken to enforce the decisions.
All decisions taken at the session are to be delivered to the appellants within one month time-limit and posted on the official website of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
