The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina has ruled that the orders of the FBiH Civil Protection Crisis Staff ordering a ban on the movement of persons under the age of 18 and over 65 in the Federation of BiH violated the right to freedom of movement under the provisions of the Constitution Bosnia and Herzegovina and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms vis-à-vis the appellants and all other persons in the same factual and legal situation, Fena news agency reports.
The Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the FBiH Civil Protection Crisis Staff have been ordered to align the Order of March 27, 2020, with the standards of the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the European Convention within five days from the date of the receipt of this decision.
The Court further ordered that the FBiH Government and the FBiH Civil Protection Crisis Staff inform the Constitutional Court of the implementation of the order referred to in this decision within three days.
The appeal was rejected in the part of the motion to quash the FBiH Civil Protection Order of March 27, 2020. In the Constitutional Court’s opinion, the impugned measures do not meet the “proportionality” requirement of Article 2 of Protocol No. 4 to the European Convention, because the impugned orders do not show the basis of the estimate of the FBiH Civil Protection Crisis Staff that the disputed groups of population pose an increased risk of contracting or transmitting infection from Covid 19.
Furthermore, options for introducing milder measures, if there is a justifiable risk, were not considered, were not strictly set for a limited amount of time, nor were they required to be reviewed regularly to ensure that they lasted only as long as it is absolutely necessary under the Article 2 of Protocol No. 4 to the European Convention, that is, to alleviate or abolish the imposed measure as soon as the situation allows it.
