BIRN: Parliament drags Vullnet Sinaj's mandate deadlines towards burning

The mandate of Socialist MP Vullnet Sinaj, accused by the opposition of violating the Constitution by benefiting from public funds through his business, risks escaping review by the Constitutional Court as a result of the delay in procedures in the Assembly.

The Law on the Functioning of the Constitutional Court provides that "a request for incompatibility of the function of a deputy may be submitted to the Constitutional Court as long as the deputy's mandate continues, but no later than 6 months before the end of the mandate...".

The mandate of the current members of the Albanian Parliament ends in September, when the 140 new members who will emerge from the parliamentary elections on May 11 are expected to be sworn in. As a result, the motion of incompatibility of the mandate for MP Sinaj cannot be reviewed by the Constitutional Court after March 10.

The motion of incompatibility signed by opposition MPs was reviewed by the Council of Mandates and Rules on November 20, and for nearly 2 months, the Speaker of the Assembly, Elisa Spiropali, has not called another meeting of this council to continue the procedures.

The opposition accuses Spiropali of deliberately dragging out this procedure with the aim of burning through the legal deadlines for reviewing the incompatibility of the mandate in the Constitutional Court.

“The procedure in violation of the Constitution and the regulations is being blocked by the Speaker of the Assembly. Most likely, this blocking is being done to burn the deadlines for the review in the Constitutional Court, which is until March 10, 2025,” Gazment Bardhi, chairman of the Democratic Party parliamentary group, told BIRN on Wednesday through a spokesperson.

Through an official letter, the Democratic Party officially requested Spiropali on December 13 to convene a meeting of the Mandates Council to review the rapporteurs' reports and include them for voting in the next plenary session.

Bardhi says he submitted another request on this issue at the last meeting of the Conference of Mayors on December 23, but has not received a response.

Asked by BIRN why the procedures for Sinaj's mandate have not continued and whether this delay risks burning through constitutional deadlines, Spiropali did not respond by the time this article was published.

A spokeswoman for the Speaker of the Parliament said that "tomorrow (Thursday) she will be officially announced about the continuation of the procedures."

Procrastination of procedures is a mechanism used by the majority also in the case of MP Olta Xhaçka, going so far as to clash with the Constitutional Court in defense of her mandate.

At the last meeting of the Mandates Council, socialist members requested that the opinion of the European Commission for Democracy through Law, known as the "Venice Commission", be awaited on the "Xhaçka" issue before going to vote in the session on the motion against Sinaj.

The opposition claims that Sinaj's case represents a clear case of conflict of interest compared to other cases that have been previously reviewed by the court. The evidence presented in the motion is several purchase invoices from public institutions near the "Big Market" supermarket chain owned by Sinaj, amounting to 3.6 million lek.

Sinaj himself denied the charges, while his lawyer described the evidence presented in the motion as insufficient to prove the MP's violation of the Constitution.

This is the second motion against a Socialist MP within this legislature, after the motion against MP Olta Xhaçka, whose husband received "strategic investor" status and the beach in front of the hotel in Dhërmi.

In the case of Xhaçka, the Socialists strongly defended the failure to send her mandate for interpretation to the Constitutional Court, violating two of its decisions, despite the court's findings that these positions "violate the foundations of the state" and are "serious violations of the Constitution."

In early December, the Venice Commission ruled in favor of the Constitutional Court, declaring its decisions binding on the Assembly, but the Socialists interpreted the opinion according to their own interests, focusing on a definition of the MP's freedom to vote. Reporter.al