Constitutional Court of BiH: Politicians are trying to turn citizens against us for pre-election campaign purposes

(Patria) - Unrestrained and tendentious attacks on the Constitutional Court of BiH are once again on the scene. Now, citizens as taxpayers are being tried to be turned against the Constitutional Court, all for the purpose of the pre-election campaign, the institution announced.

"Certain, well-paid politicians, who are also financed by citizens as taxpayers, are now presenting falsehoods about the scope and nature of compensation for international judges, along with little truth about the compensation for the work of international judges.

In addition, they are presenting falsehoods about the obligation to terminate the mandate of international judges. They are doing all this to gain citizens' votes again in the upcoming elections.

In doing so, for the purposes of political action, they are also adapting the Report on the financial audit of the Constitutional Court of BiH for 2023.

Thus, they claim that the Office for Audit of Institutions of BiH 'when reviewing the report on the work of the Constitutional Court of BiH for last year, also commented (...) on their inaction'.

The Constitutional Court, however, reminds that the Audit Office stated the following: 'Due to the termination of the mandate of two judges elected by the entity parliaments, it was not possible to hold sessions of the Grand Chamber, which consists of domestic judges and which usually decides on the largest number of cases.

For this reason, cases were decided in plenary sessions, which, in addition to domestic judges, also include international judges.

According to the Annual Statistical Report on the work of the Constitutional Court of BiH for 2023, this way of working significantly affected the work of the Constitutional Court in terms of decision-making dynamics, which led to a significant decrease in the number of resolved cases compared to the previous period (in 2022, 4,151 cases were resolved, and in 2023, 1,510 cases).'

The mentioned part of the audit report actually pointed to the causes of the decrease in the number of resolved cases and identified the reason for this in the fact that the entity parliaments did not elect the missing judges to the Constitutional Court.

Therefore, the fact that the entity parliaments have not elected domestic judges - although it is the constitutional obligation of the entities to elect judges in a timely manner - is the primary and only cause of the decrease in the number of resolved appeals.

The Constitutional Court does not hide this and persistently points out that due to the non-election of the missing judges, it can only resolve one-third of the number of received appeals. Namely, citizens believe in the justice of the Constitutional Court, so they submit appeals daily.

Since the beginning of this year, 3,938 appeals have been filed, and 560 in July alone. Otherwise, to date, 100,289 citizens have sought justice before the Constitutional Court through their appeals, and the Constitutional Court has decided on 90,300 appeals.

The remaining 10,000 citizens, as well as the Constitutional Court itself, are waiting for the mercy of the entity parliaments to elect the missing judges.

In the meantime, the Constitutional Court is doing everything in its power to resolve as many appeals as possible, and to date in 2024, it has resolved 1,985 cases. This is slightly more than one-third of the appeals filed this year, which speaks to the superhuman efforts of the Constitutional Court to, fighting windmills alone, fulfill its role and be at the service of the citizens.

Therefore, according to the opinion of the Constitutional Court, it would be far more beneficial for citizens, as taxpayers, if politicians who engage with the Constitutional Court in such a way would tell them how much salaries and compensation they, as domestic politicians, have and what laws and benefits they have brought to these same taxpayers in the past two years since their current mandate began", stated the Constitutional Court of BiH.