-
By:
Profit Gas
- August 10, 2025 19:22
- Share to:
Officials of the Vetëvendosje Movement have accused the Constitutional Court of exceeding its powers and creating new norms, while commenting on the verdict for the constitutive session. Political experts have warned that the rejection of the verdict could deepen the institutional blockade.
Officials of the party that won the national elections have continued to criticize the Constitutional Court's Judgment regarding the constitution of the Assembly, which has not yet been fully published in the Official Gazette.
In a press conference on Sunday, the acting Minister of Justice, Albulena Haxhiu, said that the court created new norms and exceeded its powers.
She has described the court order to organize an open vote for the speaker of parliament as a usurpation of the powers of the deputies.
"For me, the notification of the Constitutional Court constitutes a serious concern, because it is a flagrant excess of the powers of the Constitutional Court. Then I will relate what exactly is meant by excess of constitutional powers. According to Article 4 of the Constitution, the Constitutional Court is the highest institution that interprets the Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo and is the institution that is the guarantor of respect for the Constitution. Some of the points of the enacting clause that have already been made public do not originate from the text of the Constitution, and are not provided for in any article of the Constitution. Neither in the Constitution nor in the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly and consequently they constitute the creation of new norms, which is a function of the legislative power, but not of the judicial power," said Haxhiu.
According to her, the Vetëvendosje Movement "has never said that it will not respect the judgments of the Constitutional Court" and added that the party's actions for the session following this Judgment will be announced when the time comes.
"What our action will be after this decision, you will understand when the time comes. I don't know which decision to respect, the one from 2014, or the one from a month ago, or whatever it was," she emphasized.
Haxhiu said that there should be a debate so that constitutional interpretation practices do not turn into silent mechanisms for changes to the constitutional order.
"Nowhere in the Constitution is it allowed for a deputy to be subject to the assessment of the Constitutional Court. Only the president can be subject to a constitutional act and the court can handle the acts of the Assembly, but not of an individual, in this case the chairperson. The other one says, the voting process for the chairperson and deputy chairpersons that the voting should be open. Now the question is that in the penultimate judgment it said that it is not foreseen that the voting should be open or closed, this is at the will of the deputies. Now the court says that the voting should be open. Where does the court get this right", said Haxhiu. "So, the court has robbed the constitutional powers of the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo, because they are the authority that should decide, and it has also confirmed this in the judgment of 2025. The other one is that the voting should be carried out only three times. Where did the court see this?".
Commenting on the statements of the largest party's exponents, political expert Afrim Kasolli assessed that there are signals that the final verdict will not be accepted.
"It is now clear that the attempt to have the Speaker of the Assembly voted in a secret ballot is unconstitutional and also that the winning party of the elections cannot go on indefinitely with the same candidate, because then its right to the position of Speaker of the Assembly is being transformed into a blocking mechanism, if there is no compromise with other political entities. So, it has the right three times with the same candidate to move on to the second one. However, based on the political statements so far, with special emphasis on those of the winning party of the elections, we have seen an extremely critical attitude towards the latest judgment of the Constitutional Court," said Kasolli. "What currently stands, if we pay attention to their statements, is that the winning party has not accepted this verdict. It is the official statement of the Vetëvendosje Movement where it emphasizes the fact that the Constitutional Court violated the Constitution. At the moment when you have this perception, that the Constitution has been violated, then it is logical nonsense to accept the same verdict."
Kasolli also commented on the findings of a number of Vetëvendosje MPs, that the latest verdict attempts to steal the democratic will of the citizens of Kosovo.
"Whether it will reflect in the coming days, when the deadlines expire, remains to be seen. Perhaps some great international pressure and calculation of more fatal consequences, if this decision is not implemented, than if it is implemented, could influence the Constitutional Court's judgment to be respected, but this would not be implementation out of will, but a kind of implementation out of pressure and not a demonstration that the Constitution must be respected and political behavior must adapt to its norms, but only for show, to accomplish this task," he said.
This former MP emphasized that the path to the constitution of the Assembly is turbulent, unless there are blocking tendencies.
"In my opinion, the situation is clear. That is, for the practices that have been followed so far in the election of the Speaker of the Assembly, open voting should be continued. The winning party has the right and what is new in this regard, a candidate cannot be nominated more than three times. As we know, the Vetëvendosje Movement has 48 deputies and other parliamentary entities have expressed their willingness to vote for other candidates of the Vetëvendosje Movement. We know the position of the PDK: anyone who has not been a minister in the government cabinet. The Alliance for the Future of Kosovo has also expressed some of its political preferences. So, realistically, if this judgment is followed, if subversive methods are not followed against it with the aim of blocking it, the path has been paved for the constitution of the Assembly," said Kasolli.
According to him, the main problem lies in the lack of political will and the attempt to interpret constitutional norms according to a narrow party prism.
"I was skeptical that this verdict would be implemented, even though I did not know what its form and content would be. I was skeptical that it would be easily implemented, because this negative tendency has begun for the Constitution and its norms, the legal infrastructure, to be interpreted more according to a narrow party prism and not as they are objectively, which is that all political entities should have primary loyalty to the Constitution before party interests," he emphasized.
The Constitutional Court issued its ruling this week after merging two cases for the constitutive session that were submitted separately by the PDK and the LDK. The Constitutional Court ordered that the vote for the speaker of parliament be held in an open form and that the winning party cannot propose the same candidate for this position more than three times.
The ruling obliges MPs to elect the Speaker of the Assembly by open vote within 30 days, but does not indicate the consequences if this deadline is violated.
The deputies have not managed to elect the speaker of the highest legislative institution since the February elections. So far, more than 50 sessions have failed. The Vetëvendosje Movement, as the winning party, has never secured 61 votes for the name of Albulena Haxhiu or even for the commission for secret balloting for the speaker.