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“The brief summary of the decision explicitly says that it refers to the applicants only. So, there is no question of revision. The decision does not order the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to initiate ex-officio proceedings,” our interlocutor of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina said.
The Court in Strasbourg accepted the appellations filed by Abduladhim Maktouf and Goran Damjanovic and determined that the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina, KZ BiH, from 2003 was incorrectly applied in their case.
The European Court pointed out that the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina violated Maktouf’s and Damjanovic’s rights, considering the fact that they could have been sentenced to shorter sentences had the Criminal Code of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, KZ SFRJ, from 1976 been applied in their cases.
Our interlocutor of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina explained that, according to the law, the applicants can request a new trial, but one cannot prejudge how the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina would react.
“Not even the decision rendered by the Strasbourg Court explicitly says that the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina would have pronounced shorter sentences had it applied the Criminal Code of SFRJ, i.e. that the pronounced sentence is in line with both of the Codes, but there is a big probability that the sentences would have been shorter, had the SFRJ Code been applied,” our interlocutor said.
However, as he said, the applicants were not able to claim with certainty that the sentences would have been shorter had the Court applied that Code.
“It is clear that the new Court practices go towards the same direction as this decision, but other verdicts have been pronounced after the mentioned applications were filed,” the Court explained.
According to the State Court’s announcement, the Criminal Code of the former SFRJ has been applied in eight cases so far.
“The second instance verdicts against Maktouf and Damjanovic have not been quashed by the decision rendered by the Court in Strasbourg. By itself, the decision does not affect the other verdicts pronounced by this Court,” the announcement by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina says.
