The EU Delegation in Tirana said it’s up to Albanian institutions to decide on the matter of the violations of the Law on the Constitution and the Constitution itself in relation to the appointment of the latest members of the Constitutional Court.
As Exit has previously reported, Article 125 of the Constitution provides that the members of the Constitutional Court are selected from the candidates ranked in the first three places, from the list of KED.
“Members are selected from among the candidates ranked in the top three on the list by the Judicial Appointments Council, in accordance with the law.”
This is reinforced in the Law on the Constitutional Court, where Article 7 / c provides for the procedure for electing members of the CC by the President of the Republic.
“The President, within 30 days of receiving the list from the Judicial Appointments Council, appoints the judge of the Constitutional Court from the candidates listed in the first three places of the list.”
Thus KED had to compile a list of three names for the race to be considered valid, otherwise, it had to notify the president to reopen the race. This has not happened in the last three cases of appointees to the court.
When asked whether they recognise the violations if they deem it acceptable that the Constitutional Court is formed in an unconstitutional manner, or whether they have addressed this matter with the relevant institutions, they said:
“It is for the Albanian institutions to interpret the legal framework, while taking into account the indications provided by the Venice Commission’s opinion of June 2020.”
They added that the Judicial Appointments Council is the competent institution to evaluate candidates for the Court and then respective institutions mandated by the Constitution must make the final selection in accordance with relevant legislation.
