Constitutional Court

KI32/19 Applicant: Sylejman Januzi Constitutional review of Decision Rev. 397/2018 of the Supreme Court, of 11 December 2018

 KI32/19 Resolution on Inadmissibility of 22 July 2019, published on 08 August 2019

Keywords: Individual referral, inadmissible revision, jubilee reward, inadmissible referral

The Applicant is Mr. Sylejman Januzi, residing in the village of Barileva, municipality of Prishtina represented by lawyer Ali Latifi from Prishtina.

The Applicant worked as a teacher from 1 September 1974 until 19 November 1984, and from 20 November 1984 until 17 January 2014 as a librarian in the primary school “Ali Kelmendi” in the village of Barileva, from where he was retired.

Upon termination of the employment relationship with the Directorate of Education due to the retirement age, the Applicant initiated the administrative and later judicial proceedings regarding compensation for the jubilee rewards and accompanying salaries for retirement. The Basic Court and the Court of Appeals rejected the request as unfounded, mainly on the grounds that there was no legal basis for obtaining such a right and that the Collective Contract to which the Applicant referred was not in force at the time of the retirement of the Applicant. Whereas, the Supreme Court rejected the request for revision of the Applicant, based on Article 211 of the LCP, according to which, the revision is not permissible for property disputes in which the claim does not exceed the monetary amount of  3,000 euro.

The Applicant alleges that the Supreme Court, by rejecting his request for revision as inadmissible, violated his rights protected by Articles 3, 4, 21, 22, 23, 24, 31 and 57 of the Constitution and the right guaranteed by Article 6 of the ECHR.

Referring to its case law and that of the ECtHR, the Court reiterated and reemphasized that it is not the role of the Constitutional Court to deal with errors of fact or law allegedly committed by the regular courts when assessing evidence or applying the law  (legality), unless and in so far as they may have infringed the rights and freedoms protected by the Constitution (constitutionality). It is the role of the regular courts to interpret and apply the pertinent rules of both procedural and substantive law.

The Court noted that the Supreme Court rejected the Applicant’s request for revision as “inadmissible” in the procedural aspect and without considering the merits of the request, based on the provisions of the LCP, according to which the request for revision should be declared inadmissible in the case when the value of the dispute is below 3,000 euro. The Court in that regard noted that the reasoning given in the Decision of the Supreme Court was clear and after reviewing the proceedings in entirety, the Court also found that the proceedings before the Court of Appeals and the Basic Court were not unfair or arbitrary.

In conclusion, in accordance with Rule 39 (2) of the Rules of Procedure, the Applicant’s Referral was declared inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded on constitutional basis.