Introduction

The Human Rights Chamber’s interpretation and application of the requirements of exhausting legal remedies were subject to the dynamic developments of social and political circumstances in the period of its activities. In the beginning, when the number of received applications was small, and when the national legal system was flagrantly inefficient, the Human Rights Chamber announced that it would apply a “proactive” approach to the obligation of exhausting legal remedies in favour of the applicant. When it comes to the applicants’ omissions, the Human Rights Chamber interpreted and applied the exhaustion of remedies requirement very generously. In any case, this related to its discretion. Such an approach was particularly present in cases of particular importance for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms.³⁰⁴¹ At the end of its term, the Human Rights Chamber received a certain amount of criticism for interpreting the principle of exhausting legal remedies too generously, which made it responsible for a backlog of cases. The Chamber was aware of that risk long before. In its 1999 year-end report, the Chamber pointed out that, taking into account its legal nature, the Chamber was a subsidiary judicial body and that it could deal with a case only after preliminary preparation and “filtration” by the ordinary courts. Nevertheless, in practice, the Chamber was often considered as the only efficient judicial institution, since distrust of the national legal system was present among the general population. This was the reason why, contrary to the principle of exhausting legal remedies, individuals directly addressed the Chamber in order to seek legal protection.³⁰⁴² At the final stages of their activities, the Human Rights Chamber and the Human Rights Commission within the Constitutional Court of BiH ended up tightening the criteria relating to this principle and came closer in that manner to the practice of the BiH Constitutional Court.