Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Ustavni sud Bosne i Hercegovine), No. AP-542/21, 7 April 2021

Electoral law and postal voting by voters residing abroad.

Art. VI, para. 3, b), Constitution BiH
Art. 1, Prot. 12, ECHR
Art. 1.5., par. 2, Electoral Law of BiH
Art. 13.7, Electoral Law of BiH

1. The right to vote, whether active or passive, is not an absolute right. On the contrary, the European Court of Human Rights itself has repeatedly pointed out that States enjoy a wide margin of appreciation in the way they regulate this matter and in the way they organise and conduct their consultations.

2. The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina ruled that a "slight" delay, compared to the normal legal deadline, in the delivery of voting materials for voters living abroad did not constitute a violation of the right to vote enshrined in the Constitution and the ECHR and its Protocols, since in this type of election the deadline for the delivery of the ballot paper is determined by the date of receipt at the sender's post office. (The coalition of parties, "Moja adresa Srebrenica", complained before the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina that the decision of the Central Electoral Commission to set new elections in the Srebrenica constituency was unconstitutional, as it was set in too short a time frame to allow voting by post).