President Ilir Meta has appointed Marsida Xhaferllari to the Constitutional Court.
In his letter of November 7, President Meta had argued he could not appoint another member to the Constitutional Court until the Parliament had made its first election. This happened on November 11, when Parliament elected Elsa Toska and Fiona Papajorgji as members of the Constitutional Court, in violation of the stipulations of the Constitution.
Parliament assumed that Arta Vorpsi had been automatically elected on November 8 following the lapse of the 30-day deadline after the Justice Appointments Council (KED) sent the two candidate lists to President Meta, and therefore elected Toska and Papajorgji.
However, it appears that the 30-day time limit, following art. 125(2) of the Constitution, only holds for the Parliament. This means that President Meta did not violate prima facie any deadline by appointing Xhaferllari today. Such was indeed argued by the President during a press conference today.
This moreover means that the “choice” offered by Gramoz Ruçi to Parliament, which “automatically” excluded Arta Vorpsi under the mistaken assumption that she had been “automatically” chosen, appears to have been false.
Amusingly, while the EU and US released enthusiastic social media posts when Toska and Papajorgji were elected on Monday, they have so far failed to respond to Xhaferllari’s appointment.
Exit has reached out to the EU Delegation with questions about its selective social media policy.
This post was updated to reflect the press conference of President Meta.
