Members' mandates/ Another clash between the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court

2025-05-28 13:02:00, Aktualitet CNA

Members' mandates/ Another clash between the Supreme Court and the

Another clash has begun between the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court over the issue of the mandates of the members of the Constitutional Court. The cause of this clash was the letter dated April 15, when the Constitutional Court addressed a letter to the Supreme Court informing it that the issue of the mandate of the member of the Constitutional Court Sonila Bejtja. This issue would be reviewed in a plenary session, based on documents and without the presence of the parties.

According to the Constitutional Court , "the composition of the Court is renewed every three years by one third of its members, according to the procedure established by law" and according to the law, the process should begin in 2022 for the scheme to be functional, to begin full implementation in 2025 with the change of three members, one for each appointing body, and to continue in 2028 and 2031.

In September last year, member Elsa Toska resigned and in December, the President of the Court Holta Zaçaj refused to declare the end of her mandate, in March 2025, according to the legal provision.

The situation was followed by a long letter that the President of the Republic, Bajram Begaj, sent to the Constitutional Court at the end of January, in which there were no shortage of critical notes and it was noted, among other things, that the Court "should have completed the procedure for declaring the mandate of Judge Bejtja and notified the President of the Republic of the vacancy before 25.1.2025.

In a recent reaction to this situation, through a letter, the Supreme Court states that it is "impossible to avoid surprise" over the case, underlining that "for the first time in the 33-year history since the creation of the Constitutional Court in Albania, such a judgment of a declaratory nature is subject to an adversarial trial process."

The Supreme Court insists that the Constitutional Court should not make a judgment on this case, but should simply declare the end of Sonila Bejte's mandate. /CNA