Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 139
March 2011
Šekerović and Pašalić v. Bosnia and Herzegovina - 5920/04 and 67396/09
Judgment 8.3.2011 [Section IV]
Article 46
Article 46-2
Execution of judgment
Measures of a general character
Respondent State required to amend relevant legislation to remedy defects in pension system
Facts – As in Karanović v. Bosnia and Herzegovina (no. 39462/03, 20 November 2007, Information Note no. 102), the applicants in the present case complained that the State had failed to comply with domestic court orders requiring their pension entitlements to be transferred from Republika Srpska, where they had been internally displaced during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, to the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the entity to which they had returned after the war and where pension levels were generally higher.
Law – In line with its judgment in Karanović, the Court held, unanimously, that the failure to transfer the applicants’ pension entitlement from the Republika Srpska Fund to the Federation Fund had violated Article 6 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. It also unanimously found a breach of Article 14 of the Convention read in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 in that, as a pensioner returning from Republika Srpska after the war, the second applicant had, without objective and reasonable justification, been treated differently from pensioners who had stayed in the Federation.
Article 46: The facts of the Karanović case had disclosed a shortcoming within the Bosnian pension system as a consequence of which a whole class of citizens had continued to receive Republika Srpska Fund pensions rather than Federation pensions despite their return to the Federation after the war. According to the figures supplied by the respondent Government, more than 3,500 people fell into this category, all of whom were potential applicants to the Court. Despite the Karanović judgment and a subsequent decision of the Constitutional Court that indicated that the domestic legislation needed amending to make such persons eligible for a Federation pension, no steps had been taken to transfer their pension rights. Given the threat this situation posed to the future effectiveness of the Convention machinery, the Court directed that the respondent State had to secure, within six months from the date in which the judgment became final, the amendment of the relevant legislation in order to render the applicants and others in that situation eligible to apply for Federation pensions. That order did not, however, apply to those who had not returned to the Federation after the war, although those who were granted Federation pensions after their return from the Republika Srpska were to keep their pension entitlements even if, like the second applicant, they later moved abroad.
Article 41: EUR 5,000 in respect o
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