Constitutional Court

KI80/17, Applicant: Muharrem Ademi, Constitutional review of Judgment Ac. no. 4051/2014 of the Court of Appeals of 9 June 2017

KI 80/17, Resolution on inadmissibility of 1 March 2018, published on 19 April 2018

Key words: individual referral, constitutional review of the judgment of the Court of Appeals of Kosovo, legal contest of employment relationship, manifestly ill-founded

The Referral is based on Article 113.7 of the Constitution, Article 47 of Law No. 03/L-121 on the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Kosovo, and Rule 29 of the Rules of Procedure of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Kosovo.

The present Applicant initiated a labour contest with the regular courts against the Student Center in Prishtina (SCP) because the SCP management terminated his employment relationship in 1992. The Applicant requested to be reinstated to his previous job position and be paid the unpaid personal salaries for the period he was not employed. The said proceedings were concluded by the judgment of the Court of Appeals whereby the Applicant’s appeal was declared ungrounded thereby rejected reasoning that SCP lacked the passive legitimacy in order to be a party to the proceedings.

The Applicant states that the regular courts rejected his claim for compensation of unpaid personal income as ungrounded. He alleges, therefore, that by taking such stance, the courts violated his rights and freedoms guaranteed by Articles 31 and 46 of the Constitution and Articles 6 and 13 of ECHR and Article 1 of Protocol 1 thereto.

The Court reiterates that the determination of the factual situation falls under the full jurisdiction of regular courts and that the role of the Constitutional Court is only to ensure that the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and other legal instruments are adhered to. IT can, therefore, not act as a “fourth-instance” court. In the given case, having regard to all the circumstances, the Court did not find anything demonstrating that the substantive and legal regulations were applied arbitrarily or unfairly to the detriment of the applicant. Therefore, based on the foregoing, it considers that the referral is manifestly ill-founded, hence inadmissible.