Decision on Gordana Tadić's dismissal remains in force, no interim measures from the Constitutional Court of BiH

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina rejected as unfounded the request of the dismissed Chief Prosecutor of the BiH Prosecutor's Office, Gordana Tadić, for interim measures that would "suspend the execution of the HJPC's Decision" on her dismissal until the proceedings before the Constitutional Court are concluded.

In her appeal, Tadić stated that the contested decisions violated her right to a fair trial because of "obviously arbitrary application of substantive and procedural law, because of the lack of legal reasoning, due to biased and arbitrary court conduct, obviously arbitrary determination of facts, unlawful court proceedings in the appeal process with obviously arbitrary application of law, and the guarantee of a second-instance procedure and judicial protection was violated."

She states that the consequences of her conduct (when she assigned cases manually) were not described in the operative part of the decisions of the First Instance Commission and the Second Instance Commission, nor were they established during the proceedings.

"The appellant points out that the Law on the basis of which the disciplinary proceedings were conducted does not guarantee a fair and just procedure, because disciplinary offenses are not prescribed by law as more serious and less serious offenses, so it is legally uncertain what sanction the accused can expect, because without prescribed more serious and less serious disciplinary offenses, the possibility of arbitrary decision-making is open. This legal ambiguity was used in this procedure to impose a sanction that is not the result of the conducted evidentiary proceedings and is based on the assessment of the severity of the offense according to alleged facts, because no one has established these decisive facts. From the reasoning, it gives the impression that this determination is a "consequence" of the conducted evidentiary proceedings, and it is not, because no evidence was presented on these circumstances, on the contrary, evidence was presented that this is not the case. Furthermore, the appellant points to the objective bias of the members of the HJPC," the appeal states.

The Constitutional Court of BiH states that the appellant did not present any specific reasons and arguments, but that the request is based on the claims she made regarding the violation of the right to a fair trial.

"Having in mind the foregoing, and especially the complete lack of arguments as to why the Constitutional Court should issue interim measures in this specific case, the Constitutional Court considers that the appellant, apart from the claims related to the merits of the dispute, has not offered arguments and evidence that would prima facie indicate the necessity of issuing the requested interim measures. Therefore, the Constitutional Court considers that the appellant's request for interim measures is unfounded because, in the circumstances of this specific case, nothing indicates that issuing interim measures would be in the interest of the parties or the proper conduct of the proceedings," the decision of the Constitutional Court of BiH states.

Let us remind you, the HJPC of BiH confirmed on October 20, 2021, the decision of the Second Instance Disciplinary Commission for Prosecutors of the HJPC of BiH to dismiss Tadić from the position of Chief Prosecutor of the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The First Instance Commission made its decision on July 23, 2021.