Přehled
Rozhodnutí
FOURTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 4767/20
BIMAL D.D.
against Bosnia and Herzegovina
The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 27 September 2022 as a Committee composed of:
Tim Eicke, President,
Faris Vehabović,
Pere Pastor Vilanova, judges,
and Ilse Freiwirth, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 4767/20) against Bosnia and Herzegovina lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 6 December 2019 by a company registered in Bosnia and Herzegovina, BIMAL d.d., (“the applicant”) which was represented by Ms T. Blagojević, a lawyer practising in Brčko;
the decision to give notice of the complaint concerning the right to adversarial proceedings before the Constitutional Court to the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina (“the Government”), represented by their Acting Agent, Ms H. Bačvić, and to declare inadmissible the remainder of the application; and
the parties’ observations.
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The applicant company complained before the Constitutional Court about the outcome of civil proceedings. In accordance with Rule 23 of the Rules of the Constitutional Court, the defendant in the impugned civil proceedings, the Supreme Court of the Republika Srpska, the High Commercial Court and the Banja Luka District Commercial Court submitted their observations. Since this was not envisaged by its Rules at that time, the Constitutional Court, which gave its decision on 8 May 2019, did not transmit those observations to the applicant. The applicant claims, relying on Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, that its right to adversarial proceedings was breached.
THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT
2. The Court refers to the principles established in its case-law regarding the notion of “significant disadvantage” (see Sylka v. Poland (dec.), no. 19219/07, § 27, 3 June 2014).
3. The Court observes that the non-communicated observations of the other participants in the proceedings before the Constitutional Court did not contain anything new or relevant to the case and the decision of the Constitutional Court was not based on them. Therefore, the applicant company did not suffer any “significant disadvantage” for the purposes of Article 35 § 3 (b) of the Convention by the non-communication of the observations in question (see Holub v. the Czech Republic (dec.), no. 24880/05, 14 December 2010; and contrast BENet Praha, spol. s r.o. v. the Czech Republic, no. 33908/04, § 135, 24 February 2011; Hrdalo v. Croatia, no. 23272/07, § 37, 27 September 2011; and Maravić Markeš v. Croatia, no. 70923/11, § 52, 9 January 2014).
4. The Court also notes that on 16 December 2021 the Constitutional Court decided to start transmitting all observations to the appellants for comments, in order to harmonise its procedure with the case-law of this Court. Therefore, and since the Court has already addressed this issue on many occasions (see, for example, BENet Praha, spol. s r.o., cited above, §§ 137-46; Hrdalo, cited above, §§ 34-40; and Maravić Markeš, cited above, §§ 46-57), respect for human rights does not require an examination of the application on the merits (see Holub, cited above).
5. It follows that the application must be declared inadmissible and rejected pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 (b) and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 20 October 2022.
Ilse Freiwirth Tim Eicke
Deputy Registrar President