Fetahu replies to Kurti: The bill on the Specialist Chambers can be voted on today, there is no obligation to wait 72 hours

The PDK’s lawyer, Faton Fetahu, has disputed Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s statement regarding the procedure for the second reading of the draft law on amending and supplementing the Law on the Specialist Chambers.

Fetahu said the claim that the draft law cannot be considered in a second reading without 72 hours passing since the first reading is “entirely untenable in legal terms” and, according to him, does not match the findings of the Constitutional Court in its judgment of 9 January 2026.

According to him, the 72-hour deadline is set out in Article 85 of the Assembly’s Rules of Procedure, which is linked to the accelerated procedure. However, Fetahu stresses that this is not the only procedural possibility available to the Assembly.

He referred to Article 123 of the Assembly’s Rules of Procedure, which, according to him, allows derogation from procedural deadlines on the proposal of at least six MPs and with the vote of two-thirds of the MPs present.

“It is precisely this institution that can be applied for the second-reading stage of this draft law,” Fetahu declared.

The PDK’s lawyer also disputed the comparison with the 13 laws adopted on 5 December 2024, which the Constitutional Court had declared unconstitutional.

Fetahu, who says he was the PDK’s authorised lawyer in the constitutional proceedings concerning those laws, argued that the Court had not declared them unconstitutional because of non-compliance with the accelerated procedure of Article 85.

According to him, the problem had been the way Article 123 was used.

He said that in the case of the 5 December laws, the two readings had taken place within an extremely short time, while only a few minutes had been left for the different stages of the committees’ work.

“The Court did not contest the existence of Article 123, but it contested its application in a way that emptied the parliamentary procedure of its constitutional content,” Fetahu declared.

Fetahu assesses that the current situation is different from that of 2024.

According to him, the materials of the draft law on the Specialist Chambers were distributed to MPs on Saturday, 3 October, while the first reading took place and was completed on Monday, 5 October.

He stresses that MPs had around 48 hours available to review the material before the first reading.

According to Fetahu, if the Assembly today approves the derogation from procedural deadlines through Article 123 and provides MPs and committees with real time for submitting amendments, committee review and preparation of the report for the session, then there is no legal obstacle to the draft law passing its second reading today as well.

The PDK’s lawyer argued that the Constitutional Court has not determined that 72 hours must pass between the two readings of a draft law in every circumstance.

According to him, that deadline is linked to Article 85, while Article 123 exists precisely to enable the Assembly to derogate from procedural deadlines, provided effective parliamentary scrutiny is not undermined.

“The Constitutional Court has not ruled that 72 hours must necessarily pass between two readings in every circumstance,” Fetahu said.

He concluded that the analogy with the laws declared unconstitutional is unfounded and that, in legal terms, there is no obligation to wait until Thursday.

According to him, the draft law on amending and supplementing the Law on the Specialist Chambers can be considered and voted on in a second reading even today, if the Assembly decides to apply Article 123 in accordance with the standards set by the Constitutional Court, as Telegrafi reports.