Constitutional Court ruling on the Assembly raises dilemmas; experts: This creates legal uncertainty

The Constitutional Court’s ruling on the constitution of the Assembly and the election of the new Government has raised dilemmas over the constitutional standard for constituting the Assembly, electing deputy speakers, and respecting the 30-day deadline.

Critics of the ruling say the Court’s approach has created legal uncertainty and ambiguity over how these issues should be interpreted in the future.

On Dukagjini’s FIVE, Melos Kolshi of the Kosovo Institute for Justice said the published operative part reveals a shift from the constitutional standard previously set by the Constitutional Court itself.

“The Court has published only the notification for the two cases that were handled. We still don’t have the full reasoning, to understand exactly what the court’s positions are. But from the operative part we saw, at the very least we can say there is a serious change in the constitutional standard, which was built by the Court itself,” Kolshi said.

According to Kolshi, in its 2025 judgments the Constitutional Court had determined that the Assembly is considered constituted at the moment the speaker and the five deputy speakers are elected.

“The Constitution itself, in Article 67, paragraph 1, stipulates that the Assembly elects its speaker and five deputy speakers — three from the Albanian community, two from non-majority communities. And in all its 2025 judgments the Court has said that the Assembly is considered constituted at the moment the speaker and his five deputy speakers are elected. It did not say, and left no room for, any other interpretation or misinterpretation…” he said.

Kolshi said that in its latest ruling the Court considered the Assembly constituted, while asking MPs to elect the missing deputy speaker as soon as possible.

According to him, this raises the question of which standard should be followed in the future.

“While today the court considers the Assembly constituted and says that MPs should elect the missing deputy speaker as soon as possible… the problem now is that it is no longer known what the standard is…

This situation creates legal uncertainty — whether the election of the five deputy speakers is a condition for the constitution of the Assembly or merely an obligation that can be fulfilled even after the Assembly is constituted,” Kolshi stated.

Fitim Mulolli, director of POLCON, also described the ruling as paradoxical and contradictory, saying the Constitutional Court found a solution for the current situation but, in his view, created ambiguity for the future.

“You defined it very well as a quite paradoxical ruling. It is contradictory in what Melos said earlier. It made a temporary solution for the current situation, but complicated it in the long-term aspect,” Mulolli said.

According to him, a dilemma may now arise as to which constitutional standard institutions should refer to in the future, particularly regarding the constitution of the Assembly and the election of deputy speakers.

Mulolli also raised the issue of exceeding the 30-day deadline for constituting the Assembly.

“Even the exceeding of the 30-day deadline, which says the Assembly must be constituted within 30 days of the certification of the elections, passed as something completely irrelevant,” he said.

He argued that in Kosovo a situation has been created where violating constitutional deadlines has become normalized.

“A situation has been created where, for almost two years now, violating the Constitution has been normalized,” Mulolli stated.

According to him, the Constitutional Court should have been stricter in respecting the 30-day deadline, which it itself found to have been exceeded.

“Instead of the Court being stricter in respecting the 30-day deadline, which it found was violated, it says the Assembly was constituted outside the deadline but is recognized as constituted. This is laughable,” Mulolli said. /Tv Dukagjini/