Yesterday Parliament changed its position on the reopening of the application procedure for the vetting institutions. A motion was adopted not to reopen the procedure but merely ask the National Ombudsman to collect additional certificates of 79 candidates that were disqualified on formal grounds, but which may in theory be qualified.
On March 6, Parliament adopted a motion to return the candidate lists to the National Ombudsman and reopen the application procedure for 7 days. Both Gramoz Ruçi, the leader of the parliamentary group of the PS, and candidate Minister of Interior Affairs Fatmir Xhafaj had argued that this was necessary for the process to be fair.
The National Ombudsman subsequently refused to violate the Constitution and reopen the application procedure. It now appears that a compromise has been found, where the National Ombudsman will only be in charge of gathering additional evidence.
It should be noted that this decision still goes against the advice of the International Monitoring Operation (ONM), which suggested that additional evidence be gathered by the parliamentary ad-hoc committee. This committee, however, has not yet been installed owing to the opposition’s boycott of Parliament.
