Government with limited responsibilities

The Law on Government has not provided a solution to the issue of the powers that the executive can exercise after the end of the 4-year mandate. It only talks about the limitations that the government has, but does not specify when the limitation begins - when it turns exactly four years old, or when the election results are certified.

The legal obligation that a member of the Government has to be elected as a deputy has been interpreted in two ways in civil society.

According to point 1 of Article 26 of the Law on Government, "in the event that a member of the incumbent Government is elected as a deputy of the Assembly, he must resign from the position he holds before the day of certification of the election results."

But the Kosovo Law Institute (KLI) says that the resignation is not necessary. 
Gëzim Shala, a researcher at this institute, says that there is an inconsistency in the Constitution regarding the beginning of a deputy's mandate, as, according to him, it is stated somewhere that it begins when the results are certified and somewhere when the Assembly is constituted. 

"The adoption of the copy-paste article from the Constitution into law has only complicated this situation. And now the position of the IKL and our interpretation is that the action should go towards the logical interpretation of the Constitution in such a way as not to create an institutional vacuum so that practically it falls to the ministers not to resign until the moment of the constitution of the Assembly," said Shala. 

The Kosovo Democratic Institute (KDI) thinks differently. 
Vullnet Bugaqku, a researcher at KDI, said that the mandate of MPs begins with the certification of the results and that the resignation of members of the government cabinet is a formality.

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"The government's mandate in the calendar sense expires on the last day of the four-year mandate. Since the law links the government's mandate to the regular mandate of the assembly, in this case it is stated that the mandate of the assembly members ends on the day when the election results are certified, then it is considered that the regular mandate of the parliament as a body or of the old legislature expires when the new results are certified," he said.

According to Bugaqku, the resignation may not even happen, since once the results are certified, the government's powers are limited. 

"The obligation to resign is due to the fact that it is not possible at the same time, that is, on the day when the election results are expected to be certified, a person who is an MP already elected from the new elections to be both an MP and a minister. So it is good, it is preferable that the same person declares his resignation from the position of minister in advance, before the election results are certified," he said.

The law also leaves a situation unclear. It only talks about the restrictions that the government has, but does not specify when the restrictions begin - when exactly four years have passed, or when the election results are certified.
Shala and Bugaqku say that the Government cannot propose new draft laws, take initiatives for international agreements, and make appointments.

"This government, due to the expiration of its mandate, is now considered a caretaker government and according to the Law on Government, its powers are limited; it can mainly only undertake actions that are foreseen in the government's annual plan or those that are foreseen in the annual budget," says Shala.

On the other hand, the restrictions according to Bugaqku do not apply in some situations. 

"Exceptionally, the law states hypothetically that in an extraordinary situation, where there is a state of war or emergency, or a declared state of emergency, then these restrictions do not apply to the government which is considered to have an expired mandate," he says.

The Kurti 2 government completed 4 years of its mandate last Saturday. On March 22, 2021, Albin Kurti was voted in as prime minister with 67 votes in favor, 30 against and no abstentions, a few hours after the constitution of the eighth legislature.