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  Annual Report 2002
                 
 

V. CASELOAD OF THE CHAMBER

During the year 4,177 applications were registered (more than in any other year) which brought the total number of applications registered at the Chamber to 12,659 by the end of 2002. On average, then, the Chamber received 348 applications every month during 2002. A total of 1,878 applications have been resolved through decisions of the Chamber. That left 10,781 applications pending before the Chamber by the end of 2002. During the first three months of 2003, already 787 new applications were received and 350 new cases resolved.

In 2002, the Chamber held a total of 11 plenary sessions and 11 sessions of each of its two panels (no session is held during August).

Session Dates Month
65 7 - 12 January
66 4 - 9 February
67 4 - 9 March
68 8 - 13 April
69 6 - 11 May
70 3 - 8 June
71 1 - 6 July
-- -- August
72 2 - 7 September
73 7 - 12 October
74 4 - 9 November
75 2 - 7 December

During its sessions, normally held during the first full week of every month, the Chamber considers the cases before it, both in private deliberations and public hearings. At the sessions held in 2002, the Chamber issued a total of 564 final and binding decisions which included decisions on admissibility, merits, strike-outs, requests for review, decisions on review and decisions on further remedies resolving 675 individual applications/cases. (One decision issued by the Chamber may resolve more than one individual application/case, as the Chamber has the discretion to join cases if appropriate. Also, several decisions may be issued regarding one application -- e.g. a decision on admissibility and merits, a decision on request for review and a decision on review for one case).

Decisions on admissibility and merits, decisions on review and decisions on further remedies are publicly delivered each month after they have been adopted (voted on), while all other types of decisions are adopted by the Chamber, but not publicly delivered. Public deliveries take place at the Cantonal Court in Sarajevo. (In a public delivery, some sections of the decisions are read aloud by the President or Vice-President of the Chamber. The agents appear on behalf of the respondent Parties and often the applicants are present in person). The full texts of the decisions are available to the public after the hearing.

In the decisions on admissibility and merits, issues considered in 2002 included property matters, freedom of expression, expulsion of aliens and nationals, employment discrimination, age discrimination, length of proceedings, non-enforcement of court decisions, fair trial, ill-treatment in detention, and the lack of effective remedies. In addition to adopting and delivering decisions each session, the judges also deliberated on several hundreds of other cases in various stages of procedure throughout the year. Hundreds of requests for provisional measures were also considered and decided.

The Chamber held four public hearings in 2002 during which testimony was heard and evidence received in 10 cases pending before the Chamber. The issues concerned freedom of expression, freedom of religion, right to private and family life, right to liberty and security of person, right to a fair trial, the prohibition of expulsion of aliens and nationals, right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions and discrimination. Three of the hearings were held in Sarajevo and one in Travnik. As of April 2003, the Chamber had issued decisions in all but two of the cases.

The chart below illustrates the increase in applications received and cases resolved over a period of 7 years. Annex F attached to this Report provides a dramatic visual presentation of this information. Annex E specifically shows the types and numbers of decisions taken by the Chamber through 31 December 2002.
 
Year

Number of
applications registered

Number of cases resolved

1996. 31 0
1997. 83 10
1998. 1.382 68
1999. 1.943 336
2000. 3.239 412
2001. 1.804 377
2002. 4.177 675

Total as of
31 December 2002

12.659 1.878

Note: In the first 3 months of 2003, the Chamber registered 787 new applications and resolved 350 cases bringing the total number of applications registered with the Chamber through 31 March 2003 to 13,446 and the total number of cases resolved to 2,228.