Constitutional Court

KI92/18, Applicant, Abaz Gashi, Constitutional review of Decision [Pzd. No. 47/2018] of the Supreme Court of Kosovo of 30 April 2018

KI92/18, Resolution on Inadmissibility, of 11 December 2018, published on 25 January 2019

Keywords: Individual referral, right to fair and impartial trial, ratione materiae

On 30 April 2018, the Supreme Court of Kosovo, acting upon the second referral of the Applicant, by Decision (Pzd. No. 47/2018) rejected as ungrounded the Applicant’s request for extraordinary mitigation of punishment.

The Applicant alleges that the challenged decision violated the Applicant’s rights guaranteed by Article 31 [Right to Fair and Impartial Trial] of the Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo in conjunction with Article 6 [Right to a fair trial] of the European Convention on Human Rights.

In essence, the Applicant considers that the Supreme Court of Kosovo had all the legal possibilities to mitigate the sentence and that it did not take into account the new circumstances which according to the Applicant have occurred after Judgment PAKR. No. 624/2016 of the Court of Appeals of 24 March 2016 became final.

The Court considers that the Applicant’s appeals against the rejection of the regular courts to reopen the criminal proceedings, to make a new assessment of the evidence and extraordinary mitigation of the sentence, as such, are incompatible ratione materiae with the Constitution.

The Court decided that the Applicant’s Referral is inadmissible, ratione materiae.