Sarajevo, 19 June 2026 – The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina has upheld the appeal of Transparency International in BiH (TI BiH) and determined a violation of the right to a fair trial regarding the issuance of a decision within a reasonable time before the Cantonal Court in Sarajevo. This decision comes after a years-long legal battle against institutional non-transparency that began in 2014, and confirms a much broader problem of judicial inefficiency due to which the right to access information in Bosnia and Herzegovina often remains merely a formally guaranteed right without actual protection.
The case was initiated more than a decade ago when TI BiH submitted a request for access to information to the Federal Ministry for War Veterans and Disabled Veterans of the Defensive-Liberation War. Instead of a response, there followed systematic refusal and concealment of information, which forced TI BiH to file as many as four lawsuits, and despite the fact that all ended with judgments in favour of TI BiH, access to information has not been achieved to this day.
The key problem in this case became precisely the length of the proceedings before the Cantonal Court in Sarajevo, which took more than four years to issue a decision on just one of the lawsuits filed by TI BiH. The lawsuit was filed on 28 June 2019, while the judgment was issued only on 14 September 2023.
The Constitutional Court of BiH emphasized in its decision that the proceedings on the lawsuit have lasted approximately seven years, and that it “did not identify any fact or argument that could justify the length of the said proceedings“, highlighting the noticeable contribution of the Cantonal Court in Sarajevo to the violation of the right to trial within a reasonable time.
Due to the violation of the right to trial within a reasonable time, the Constitutional Court of BiH ordered the President of the Cantonal Court in Sarajevo to conclude the proceedings, while the Government of Sarajevo Canton was ordered to pay compensation for non-pecuniary damage to TI BiH.
The decision of the Constitutional Court transcends the significance of an individual case and points to a serious systemic problem with resolving cases within a reasonable time before courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which the Constitutional Court also determined in its decision. Particularly concerning is the fact that in cases relating to access to information, decisions by courts are often awaited for several years.
Such practice directly defeats the purpose of the law on freedom of access to information. Information of public interest is requested so that citizens, media, and civil society organizations can timely monitor the work of institutions, point out irregularities, and demand accountability from public officials. When judicial protection lasts four, five, or more years, the information that is the subject of the dispute often loses its relevance and significance, while the public remains deprived of the opportunity to respond in time to potential abuses or illegalities.
Despite systemic obstructions and lengthy processes, insisting on transparency remains the only way to compel institutions to work responsibly and be accountable to citizens. Therefore, TI BiH calls on all citizens, journalists, and activists not to give up their rights, and to actively request information from public authorities. For these purposes, the platform pristupinformacijama.ba has been created, which enables simple, fast, and completely free generation and submission of requests for access to information to any institution in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as tracking of deadlines during the process.
