The Hague- based Specialist Chambers decided that the proposed constitutional amendments on the mandate of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC) and the Specialist Prosecutor’s Office (SPO) by ex-President of Kosovo, Hashim Thaci, diminish the rights and freedoms guaranteed by Chapter II of the Constitution.
A statement issued by the KSC on Thursday says that “the mandate of the Specialist Chambers and the Specialist Prosecutor’s Office has continued and shall continue until notification by the Council of the European Union of completion of the mandate”.
On August, Thaci asked the parliament to amend the constitution so as to include a legal provision stipulating that the term of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor’s Office, located in The Hague, can be terminated by the Council of the European Union.
Thaci asked that the court’s term last “until an announcement on the end of its term is made by the Council of the European Union, in consultation with the Government of the Republic of Kosovo.”
On September, the speaker of Kosovo’s Assembly Vjosa Osmani asked the Constitutional Court of the KSC-SPO in The Hague for an assessment of Thaci’s proposal regarding the potential of any rights and freedoms of the court being hampered.
The Kosovo Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor’s Office were established five years ago, in August 2015, by the Kosovo Parliament to investigate crimes allegedly committed by former Kosovo Liberation Army members.
KSC- SPO has jurisdiction over crimes against humanity, war crimes and other crimes under Kosovo law in relation to allegations reported in the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Report on “Inhuman treatment of people and illicit trafficking in human organs in Kosovo” by Dick Marty.
