Bosnia Court Rules Against Movement Curbs on Minors, Seniors

Bosnia's Constitutional Court, the top court in the country, ruled on Wednesday that banning minors and people over 65 from leaving their homes because of the coronavirus pandemic breaches their right to freedom of movement.

The court said it had rejected the request in the appeal to abolish the order and stopped short of outright annulling the measure in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the larger of the country's two entities.

Instead, the court said it had sent an instruction to the entity government and Civil Protection headquarters, giving them five days to "adjust the order [dating] from March 27, 2020 [in line] with the standards of the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Protocol number 4 of the European Convention [on human rights]".

The measure was already amended early in April to allow minors to be transported in a car and allow pensioners to leave their homes for up to four hours on weekdays in the first week of the month to collect pensions and buy medicines and essentials.

Explaining its ruling, the court said the movement curbs did not fulfill the principle of "proportionality" in connection with the European Convention because the authorities had not made clear why they estimated certain age groups had a larger risk of being infected or of transmitting the infection.

"Furthermore, the possibility of introducing lighter measures … was not considered; they [the measures] are not strictly limited in time, and neither was an obligation established to regularly review them to ensure that they lasted only as long as was necessary", it added.

The Presiding Judge, Zlatko Knezevic, told BIRN last week that the court had received several appeals since the Civil Protection body imposed the measure in...