Constitutional Court

KI176/19, Applicant: Liri Bibaj, Constitutional review of Judgment PML. No. 107/19 of the Supreme Court, of 14 May 2019

KI176/19 Resolution on inadmissibility, of 10 June 2020, published on 24 July 2020

Keywords: individual referral, criminal procedure, right to a fair trial, equality before the law, protection of property, manifestly ill-founded referral, inadmissible referral

The Applicant challenged before the Constitutional Court the constitutionality of Judgment PML. No. 107/19 of the Supreme Court, of 14 May 2019, alleging a violation of his rights guaranteed by Articles 3 and 24 [Equality Before the Law], 31 [Right to Fair and Impartial Trial], and 46 [Protection of Property], of the Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo (hereinafter: the Constitution) and Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (hereinafter: the ECHR), as well as Article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (hereinafter: UDHR).

The Court, in view of the Applicant’s allegations of violation of the right to a fair trial, that the regular courts did not properly administer the facts and evidence, based on the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, found that it was beyond its jurisdiction to assess the quality of the court’s conclusions regarding the assessment of evidence, unless they are apparently arbitrary. The Court added that “it does not interfere with the way in which the courts have taken the evidence as evidential material and does not interfere with the discretion of the court in assessing the value of the evidence. This is the exclusive role of the regular courts, even when the statements of witnesses in public and under oath are contradictory”. As for the allegation that the proceedings in their entirety is  not fair, the Court did not consider necessary to address this allegation as it had already been addressed during the review of the first allegation when it assessed the administration of evidence. The Applicant also alleged violation of Articles 25 and 46 of the Constitution, however, the Court found that he had only referred to these respective Articles of the Constitution and did not further elaborate on how their violation occurred. In this regard, the Court recalled that it has consistently reiterated that the mere mentioning of Articles of the Constitution and of the ECHR is not sufficient to build an allegation of a constitutional violation. When alleging such violations of the Constitution, the Applicants must provide reasoned allegations and convincing arguments (see, in this context, the cases of the Court, KI187/18 and KI11/19, Applicant: Muhamet Idrizi, Resolution on Inadmissibility, of 29 July 2019, paragraph 73, and finally case KI125/19, Applicant: Ismajl Bajgora, Resolution on Inadmissibility of 11 March 2020, paragraph 63).

In sum, the Court considered that the Applicant failed to indicate prove that the proceedings before the regular courts, namely the Supreme Court, were unfair or arbitrary, or that his rights and freedoms protected by the Constitution, namely by Articles 3, 24, 31 and 46 of the Constitution, Article 6 of the ECHR and Article 10 of the UDHR have been violated. Therefore, the Court concluded that the Applicant’s Referral was manifestly ill-founded on constitutional basis and in accordance with Rule 39 (2) of the Rules of Procedure, it is to be declared inadmissible.