Notary Offices In The Federation Of Bosnia & Herzegovina Deprived From Their Exclusive Authority

The Constitutional Court of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina adopts the Decision by which it ruled that certain provisions of five local laws are contrary to the Constitution of the Federation of Bosnia & Herzegovina.

FORM OF A NOTARIAL DEED - NO LONGER A "MUST"?

On 15 May 2019, a Decision U-22/16 of 06 March 2019 of the Constitutional Court of the Federation of Bosnia & Herzegovina (the "Court") was published in the Official Gazette of Federation of Bosnia & Herzegovina (the "FB&H"), by which the Court found that provisions of five local laws are unconstitutional, having in mind that they anticipate the exclusive authority of notary offices in FB&H to regulate certain private law relations.

The provisions of the following five laws, were found unconstitutional:

the Law on Registration of Business Entities of FB&H; the Law on Proprietary Rights of FB&H; the Law on Land Registry of FB&H; the Inheritance Law of FB&H; and the Family Law of FB&H. By adopting this decision, the previously mandatory form of notarial deed for, inter alia, foundation acts and/or articles of association of business companies, as well as for documents regulating any changes in regard to business companies operations; agreements for acquiring ownership rights mortgage agreements; documents regarding the registration and transfer of rights in the land register; inheritance agreements, alimony agreements; matrimonial agreements, etc., shall no longer be requested from the parties.

The provisions regarding the obligatory form can be applied for the following maximum period of six months as of the publication of the decision, during which period the Parliament of the FB&H shall be given the opportunity to harmonize the provisions in question with the Constitution of the FB&H.

REASONS BEHIND THE DECISION

This decision was adopted by the Court following the failure of legislative body to amend the provisions of the Law on Notaries, further to the Decision U-15/10 of 02 December 2015, by which the articles regulating the categories of documents and legal relations that should mandatorily be administered by the notary offices, were declared as unconstitutional. Having in mind that the necessary amendments of the said provisions, were not adopted for an unreasonably long period of time, that is for more than two years, the Court found that it is in its obligation to resolve this serious breach of constitutionality.

As a part of its obligation in the process of European...