Flash News

Family of 5 gets stranded on Mount Tomor due to bad weather, police intervene

Snow blocks the Arbri road, a problematic situation also in Qafë e Ulza

Bad weather blocks roads in Albania, traffic police: Here are the problematic axes

Wanted for extradition to Italy, the leader of the "Farruku" clan is arrested

TNT explosion in a hotel in Theth

E-TJERA

'Venice' for Xhaçka's mandate, VOA: Constitutional Court decisions mandatory for implementation

Politiko 2024-12-10 19:45:14

'Venice' for Xhaçka's mandate, VOA: Constitutional Court

The Venice Commission published today its opinion on the clash between the Albanian Parliament and the Constitutional Court regarding the mandate of MP Olta Xhaçka. In several paragraphs, the Commission clearly emphasizes that the decisions of the Constitutional Court are mandatory to be implemented and cannot be conditioned by the vote in parliament. While in response to the question sent to it by the parliament, whether MPs can be forced to vote for or against an issue, although it clearly emphasizes that the MP cannot be forced to vote, in this specific case, it also underlines that the decision of the Constitutional Court, which is mandatory to be implemented, had been issued before the MPs voted for it. The socialist majority and the opposition interpreted this opinion in completely opposite directions.

The issue of MP Xhaçka's mandate dates back to June 2022, when opposition MPs addressed parliament with a motion to declare the former minister's mandate invalid and terminate it. According to them, Ms. Xhaçka was in a conflict of interest, given that her husband, former Socialist MP Artan Gaçi, had obtained the status of a strategic investor for the construction of a hotel on the Dhërmi coast. Ms. Xhaçka herself has insisted that she has not benefited from a single penny of public funds, and that the status granted to her husband does not foresee such a thing happening. The Socialists also voted against sending the case to the Constitutional Court.

Two decisions of this Court, according to which the parliament should have referred the case to it, were blocked by majority votes, after it assessed that the deputy cannot be forced to vote in a certain way and that this freedom is recognized by the constitution.

After the last vote in September, the President of the Parliament, Elisa Spiropali, announced the referral of the case to the Venice Commission. The opinion published today by this Commission states that “the implementation by all authorities of the decisions of the Constitutional Court is based on the principle of loyalty to the Constitution as an element of the rule of law. Such an obligation should not be conditioned by the vote of the parliamentary majority, but is a vital requirement of the rule of law”, assesses the Venice Commission, adding that “when a decision of a Constitutional Court interprets the Constitution as a limitation of the decision-making power of Parliament, the latter must take a decision in accordance with the judgment of the Court and vote on the specific issue, as determined by the Constitutional Court, and not on the possibility of referring the case to the Constitutional Court. In this way, Parliament is not obliged to vote in a certain form, but is able to vote only on issues that are within its competence”.

The Socialists have interpreted this last sentence as a support for the position held by them. "It is clear that the questions raised in relation to the vote on the implementation of the decisions of the Constitutional Court in the case in question were fair and based on entirely constitutional and legal arguments. And they are related to the integrity of parliamentary autonomy, the right of the parliamentary minority to directly address the Constitutional Court in the case of incompatibility of the mandate of the deputy, the constitutional roles of the Assembly and the Court according to the definitions in the law and in the constitution", declared the chairwoman of the Laws Committee, the socialist Klotilda Bushka.

Meanwhile, the opposition is confident that the Commission has proven it right. According to the head of the Democratic Party parliamentary group, Gazmend Bardhi, "the Venice Commission clearly confirms the justice of the opposition's battle, reiterating that there can be no political discretion in respecting and implementing the decisions of the Constitutional Court. The Venice Commission - writes Mr. Bardhi further - has given the biggest slap in the face to a majority in these 34 years, confirming internationally that the non-implementation of the decisions of the Constitutional Court by political vote is unprecedented."

The opposition's position is supported by several other moments in the Venice Commission Opinion, which states that in the specific case "the Constitutional Court of Albania had already decided that the Parliament was obliged to send to the Constitutional Court the motion for the incompatibility of the mandate of the deputy" Olta Xhaçka.

The Venice Commission further underlines that “the fundamental principle of the rule of law is the primacy of the Constitution and the respect, by all state powers and authorities, of the binding effect of the decisions of the Constitutional Court, when there is one. The obligation to adhere to the Constitution and existing legislation, as well as to the decisions of the Constitutional Court, is not a form of binding mandate which subordinates the vote of deputies to the political will of the party, and which is prohibited by international standards”.

The text of the Opinion notes that “the very purpose of the existence of the Constitutional Court is to limit possible violations by the legislature or other state actors. The Parliament cannot refer to the principle of separation of powers to refuse to implement and respect the decisions of the Constitutional Court within the framework of the powers granted to it by the Constitution”. For this reason, according to the Venice Commission, the questions addressed by the Albanian Parliament in this case “cannot be seen as a matter of free mandate, since respecting or not the decision of the Constitutional Court cannot be a matter of political will. In the specific case for which this request was submitted, the Court had issued two decisions, and the effective implementation of these decisions cannot be conditioned by voting or a parliamentary majority”.

But the two completely opposite readings of the Opinion, by the majority and the opposition, do not seem to offer hope that the issue of Ms. Xhaçka's mandate will be able to move towards a solution. VOA