Fair trial – reasoned judgment - part III

...with respect to the appellant’s arguments challenging the merits of the plaintiff’s claim, the Supreme Court clearly specified the basic characteristics and types of factoring agreement, which was not prescribed at that time in the law provisions. Taking Article 5 of the Agreement as a starting point stating that the appellant would repay the total amount of the loan with the associated amount of interest, the court concluded that the plaintiff was entitled to request the appellant to repay the loan amount, since the appellant’s customers did not pay him the amounts stated in the invoices. In this regard, the Constitutional Court notes, in particular, that the appellant, in support of his claims that the plaintiff should have taken legal action against his customers in order to collect the claims, does not indicate in the appeal any provision of the contract or annexes from which the plaintiff’s obligation would arise. Therefore, there is a fact that it was about a non-recourse factoring. Further, considering the appellants’ allegations challenging the conclusions of the expert witnesses on which the Supreme Court based its decision, the Constitutional Court notes that it follows from the reasoning of the Supreme Court, which upheld the findings of the Municipal Court, that the decision on the amount of claims was made on the basis of the burden of proof rule and that the appellant, who was represented by an attorney during the proceedings, had the opportunity to challenge this finding, which the ordinary courts clearly stated. In addition, the Constitutional Court recalls that the Constitutional Court is not called upon to review findings of ordinary courts as to the facts. Thus, in the circumstances of a particular case, given the interpretation of the content of the expert’s findings, there is nothing to indicate that the facts were arbitrarily established in the particular case based on the mentioned finding and opinion, both in terms of the amount of the principle debt and interest.
•    Decision on Admissibility and Merits No. AP 4106/17 of 17 July 2019, paragraph 35, published in the Official Gazette of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 55/19; factoring contract; no violation of Article 6 of the European Convention and Article II(3)(e) of the Constitution of BiH

There is no violation of the right to a fair trial under Article II(3)(e) of the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Article 6(1) of the European Convention, since the adversarial principle was not breached in the proceedings completed by the impugned judgment of the Supreme Court nor was there a violation of civil proceedings in a situation where the Basic Court, by exercising the discretion within the meaning of Article 12(1) of the CPC, considered the issue of marital property as a preliminary issue and enabled the appellant to present the facts and evidence in support of her claims, whereby the ordinary courts, based on the large amount of evidence, clarified the relevant circumstances of the case and found that substantive conditions were met to contest the debtor’s actions, within the meaning of Article 281 of the Law on Obligations and, in this connection, the ordinary courts examined all the relevant objections reiterated in the appellant’s appeal and provided sufficiently clear reasons for their decisions that did not seem arbitrary.
•    Decision on Admissibility and Merits No. AP 3516/17 of 10 September 2019, paragraph 42, published in the Official Gazette of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 66/19; adversarial principle, marital property, no violation of Article 6 of the European Convention Article II(3)(e) of the Constitution of BiH established

There is no violation of the right to a fair trial under Article II(3)(e) of the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Article 6(1) of the European Convention where the courts provided sufficient and relevant reasons for the decision that the appellants were not entitled to the right of exclusion of property in the bankruptcy proceedings, since the appellants failed to prove that they were the owners of the property for which they sought the exclusion.
•    Decision onAdmissibility and Merits No.AP4631/17 of 30 October 2019, paragraph 40, published in the Official Gazette of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 76/19; the dispute concerning the right of the appellants to file a petition in bankruptcy proceedings for exclusion of their own property from the bankruptcy estate, no violation of Article 6 of the European Convention or Article II(3)(e) of the Constitution of BiH established

The Constitutional Court finds that the impugned judgments are in violation of the appellant’s right to a fair trial under Article II(3)(e) of the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina where the ordinary courts obliged the appellant to pay compensation for damages without relevant examination of the basis for such compensation in the light of the legal framework prescribing the obligation to file a request for enforcement of the CRPC decision within the limitation period related to the administrative enforcement, otherwise leading to a loss of occupancy right ex lege, so that the CRPC decision, confirming the occupancy right, is important only if the request for the administrative enforcement thereof is filed with the competent administrative bodies, and the Constitutional Court, in its case-law, has taken a clear position about it. In addition, in the present case the ordinary courts failed to give relevant reasoning on the complaint regarding the statute of limitations in terms of Article 376 of the Law on Obligations, and regarding the appellant’s liability for the damage claimed in the circumstances where the building i.e. the disputed apartment was devastated by a force majeure i.e. war events, which was the reason to pull down the building after the war based on the decisions of the competent authorities in Mostar.
•    Decision on Admissibility and Merits No. AP 102/18 of 27 November 2019, paragraph 64, published in the Official Gazette of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 83/19; compensation for pecuniary damages caused by the war, enforcement of CRPC decision, a violation of Article 6 of the European Convention and Article II(3)(e) of the Constitution of BiH established