Communicated on 12 February 2020
Published on 2 March 2020
FOURTH SECTION
Application no. 23795/19
Fadila PEŠTELIĆ against Bosnia and Herzegovina
and 2 other applications
(see list appended)
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The applications concern three different sets of civil proceedings. In each of them, the Supreme Court rejected the applicant’s appeal on points of law as inadmissible in respect of one part of the case and reversed the second-instance judgment, ruling against the applicant, regarding the remainder of the case. The Constitutional Court overlooked the fact that the third-instance judgments had partly dealt with the merits of the cases and held that the time-limit for lodging a constitutional appeal had thus started running on the date of service of the second-instance judgments. As a result, the Constitutional Court rejected the applicants’ constitutional appeals as out of time.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Have the applicants exhausted all effective domestic remedies, as required by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention? In particular, was the request for review under Rule 68 of the Rules of the Constitutional Court an effective remedy within the meaning of this provision in respect of the applicants’ complaint concerning access to the Constitutional Court? The Government are requested to provide examples, if any, of cases in which that remedy has been used to rectify mistakes made by the Constitutional Court in declaring an appeal inadmissible.
2. Did the applicants have access to the Constitutional Court for the determination of their civil rights and obligations, in accordance with Article 6 § 1 and/or Article 13 of the Convention (see, mutatis mutandis, Đokić v. Serbia, no. 1005/08, §§ 35-38, 20 December 2011)?
3. Were the decisions rendered in the civil proceedings arbitrary and for that reason contrary to Article 6 § 1 of the Convention (see, for example, Bochan v. Ukraine (no. 2) [GC], no. 22251/08, §§ 60-65, ECHR 2015)? If so, has there also been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1?
APPENDIX
No.
Application no.
Case name
Lodged on
Applicant
Date of Birth
Place of Residence
Nationality
Represented by
1
23795/19
Peštelić v. Bosnia and Herzegovina
24/04/2019
Fadila PEŠTELIĆ
29/09/1954
Banovići
Ćamil SOFTIĆ
2
23809/19
Modrić v. Bosnia and Herzegovina
24/04/2019
Azra MODRIĆ
04/03/1953
Banovići
Ćamil SOFTIĆ
3
44353/19
Božić v. Bosnia and Herzegovina
05/08/2019
Miodrag BOŽIĆ
29/11/1961
Banja Luka
Vladimir KOVAČEVIĆ
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy