Constitutional Court

The President of Kosovo filed a referral requesting from the Court a clarification as to which institution “…is responsible to assess the effectiveness and validity of a resignation and assess an eventual termination of the mandate of a mayor based on a release issued to its citizens…”, The President requested this clarification based on the case of resignation of Rahovec Mayor, Mr, Qazim Qeska, through a press release, reconfirmation of such resignation by the Ministry of Local Government, and later on the revocation of this resignation by Mr, Qazim Qeska himself, The applicant claims that the case at hand contains some unclear issues in relation to the competencies of respective institutions in determining the validity of the resignation and termination of the mandate of a mayor, and as a consequence of these unclear issues he cannot move on with further actions in line with the constitutional principle for free and fair elections, According to him, the President is the authorised party to submit this constitutional matter to the Court, and considering that he is obliged according to the Constitution to ensure compliance with the constitutional principle for free and fair elections, he has to clarify as to what are the further steps that he should undertake following a resignation of a given mayor, The Constitutional Court decided that the referral is admissible based on the authorisations of the President in the Constitution to raise such Constitutional issues before the Court, Furthermore, the Court decided that based on the Law on Local Self-governance, the resignation of a given mayor is final and definitive and marks the termination of his/her mandate, and that the constitutional consequences of such an action are the announcement of new elections by the President in order to ensure that citizens enjoy the right to free and fair elections when establishing their local self-governance