Constitutional Court: Appeal by the Serb List under review; Jakaj: The Constitution was violated when Rasic was elected

The Constitutional Court announced that the appeal filed by the Serb List regarding the election of Nenad Rašić as Vice President of the Assembly in the previous legislature is under review, and that a decision will be adopted after all constitutional aspects of the applicant’s allegations have been considered in accordance with the Constitution, reports Kosova Press.

Researcher at the Kosovo Legal Institute, Naim Jakaj, believes that an interpretation by the Constitutional Court regarding the election of Nenad Rasic as Vice President in the previous legislature is necessary. He expresses doubts that the election was constitutional.

“By reading the Constitution and the rulings of the Constitutional Court, we assessed that the vice president from the ranks of the non-majority Serb community was not proper in terms of constitutional procedure. We believe that the Constitution was violated in the most recent case when Mr. Nenad Rasic was elected. This is a case before the Constitutional Court, for which we expect and believe a ruling will be issued soon, so that the Assembly and its members are not placed in situations where they could commit constitutional violations. Therefore, the Constitutional Court should decide on this issue as soon as possible, in order to avoid problems whereby the vice president could become an obstacle to the constitution of the Assembly and thus prevent the opening of the path toward the formation of the Government of Kosovo,” he said.

Elected MP of the Self-Determination Movement, Artan Abrashi, stated that although clarification by the court on the procedure for electing the deputy speaker of the Assembly from the Serb community would benefit the process, institutions must continue to operate in accordance with the applicable rules and procedures.

“It is necessary for the Constitutional Court to issue a judicial decision regarding the case at hand as soon as possible; otherwise, we will continue in line with the rules and procedures we have. I believe it would be to our advantage to receive clarification regarding the matter that was referred to the Constitutional Court for interpretation, but that does not depend on us,” he said.

The potential consequences should the Constitutional Court fail to render a decision on the Serb List’s appeal before the start of the constitution of the new parliamentary term were examined by Kosovo Online in the analysis titled “Three months without a response from the Constitutional Court to the Serb List’s appeal: A reprise in parliament, perhaps even a crisis?”.