The role of the Constitutional Court of Serbia is crucial in national implementation of the European Convention of Human Rights and the standards arising from the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights. The Head of the Council of Europe Office in Belgrade, Tobias Flessenkemper met with the President of the Constitutional Court, judge Snezana Markovic and discussed ways of deepening co-operation between the Council of Europe and the Constitutional Court also through co-operation projects that the Council of Europe is implementing in Serbia.
President Marković reiterated firm commitment of the Constitutional Court to apply the Convention and the Court’s case-law when deliberating and delivering decisions in respect to human rights and fundamental freedoms of citizens of Serbia. As she noted, this has been reafirmed in numerous Constitutional Court decisions since 2008. She added that in the year of jubilee, Constitutional Court had the opportunity to welcome judge Sicilianos, at that time president of the European Court of Human Rights, which was the first visit of this kind since the establishment of the Constitutional Court.
Tobias Flessenkemper stated that the co-operation between the Council of Europe and Constitutional Court should be based on three pillars: knowledge and information sharing about the work and case-law of the Constitutional Court in correlation with the Convention and the Court in Strasbourg, strengthening capacity for the associates within the Constitutional Court and contribution to the already established and on-going judicial dialogue between European Court of Human Rights and Constitutional Court.
The meeting took place following on to the high-level celebration of the 70th anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights in Belgrade, in which President of the Constitutional Court took an active part.