Procedure for referral of issues according to Article VI.3(c) of the BiH Constitution

The Constitutional Court shall have jurisdiction over issues referred by any court in Bosnia and Herzegovina concerning whether a law, on whose validity its decision depends, is compatible with this Constitution, with the European Convention for Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and its Protocols, or with the laws of Bosnia and Herzegovina; or concerning the existence of or the scope of a general rule of public international law pertinent to the court‘s decision

Article VI.3(c) regulates the procedure of referring issues to the Constitutional Court in the event that the lower courts have doubts concerning the constitutionality of a regulation which is decisive for the resolution of a judicial case. This procedure should provide for the constitutional monopoly of the BiH Constitutional Court.

So far the lower courts have rarely used this possibility and therefore the Constitutional Court has had almost no opportunity to precisely define the admissibility requirements for such procedure in its own judicial practice. A series of requirements can be found in the constitutional provision itself and those requirements have been partially and additionally defined in Article 19, paragraph 4 of the Rules of the Constitutional Court.