The Court of BiH Accepted TI BiH Lawsuit against the Central Election Commission

TI BiH filed a report to CEC against Mr. Nermin Nikšić due to the facts that the Federal Government appointed his brother as Acting Executive Director of a public company Autoceste FBiH, and in 2012, it asked the CEC BiH to provide the information about actions taken in this case. CEC BiH refused to provide the information, so TI BiH has filed a lawsuit for violating the Law on Free Access to Information.

The Cort of BiH in its reasoning of the Judgement stated that the CEC BiH did not specify a single pragraph of the Law under which it is possible to make an exception regarding disclosure of the requested information, and therefore violated the procedure and offered no explanation for failing to provide the information. Accordingly, the Court of BiH has accepted the lawsut of the TI BiH and returned the request to CEC, and ordered the CEC BiH to pay procedural expences to the TI BiH.

In the meantime, the new Law on Conflic of Interest in BiH had been adopted, which deprives CEC BiH of its jurdistiction, prescribes establisment of a new commission and office and rehiring former CEC’s employees, and also blocks the implementation of the Law on Conflict of Interest of FBiH and Brčko District. Having in mind opstructions in the formation of the new commission, the question is when and how the decisions are to be made regading previous cases on conflict of interese which have been put on hold for months.

When it comes to the implementation of the Law on Free Access to Information, this is not the only verdict which support the fact that the public institutions in BiH have been violating the Law on Free Accesss to Information. During 2014, five lawsuits filed by TI BiH against different institutions at different levels were accepted. However, despite the growing number of verdicts, the institutions continue to violate the Law and prescribed procedures, causing damage not only to the public interest but also to the budget through the constat payments of the procedural expences.

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