The Judicial Appointments Council is set to submit two names to the presidency for the sixth member of the Constitutional Court.
The names expected to be sent are Aleksandër Toma and Përparim Kalo, as they are the only candidates applying for the post.
If KED decides to send the list with only two candidates, it risks to violate the Constitution and the law on the Constitutional Court.
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 Assembly.
Point 5 of this article stipulates that the Law Commission organizes hearings with the candidates and then compiles a list of three names which it sends to the plenary session to be voted by 3/5.
“The Committee on Legal Affairs, Public Administration and Human Rights, according to the ranking, within a reasonable time, organizes hearings with the candidates. Public institutions related to the justice system, civil society organizations active in the protection of human rights or established to protect the interests of users of the justice system may submit their views on candidacies to the Nomination Council in Justice. After these sessions, the Commission sends to the Assembly the names of the three candidates for each vacancy together with the reasoned report for each selected candidate.”
Thus KED had to compile a list of three names for the competition to be considered valid, otherwise, it had to notify the Assembly to reopen the competition.
On the 17th the Parliament approved Altin Binaj as the fifth member of the Constitutional Court. Again Exit argued in an article that this action of KED seems to be in violation of the law, as KED sent to the Assembly only the candidacy of Binaj.
But the election of the fifth member of the Constitutional Court was hailed by foreign ambassadors in the country and was seen as a step towards the functioning of the Constitutional Court.
These second nominations are also a violation as they number two, not three.
