Constitutional Court

KI191/19, Applicant: Kadri Rexhepi, Constitutional review of Judgment Pml. No. 272/19 of the Supreme Court of Kosovo of 18 September 2019

KI191/19, Decision on rejection, adopted on 15 July 2020, published on 24 August 2020

Keywords: individual referral, decision to summarily reject, incomplete referral.

On 21 March 2018, the Basic Prosecution in Ferizaj accused the Applicant of committing the criminal offense of “fraud” in co-perpetration under paragraph 5 of Article 335 in conjunction with paragraph 1 of Article 31 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kosovo. The Applicant through his defense counsel submitted a request for dismissal of the indictment to the Basic Court in Prishtina. On an unspecified date, on the Applicant was imposed the measure of detention. Based on the case file, the Applicant on 30 May 2019 was placed in detention on remand. According to the case file, which was not completed before the Constitutional Court, it results that the Basic Court extended the detention of the Applicant, against which Decision the Applicant filed an appeal and a request for protection of legality.

The Applicant, through his legal representative before the Constitutional Court specified that he challenges Judgment Pml. No. 272/19 of the Supreme Court of Kosovo, of 18 September 2019 regarding the extension of his detention on remand, but does not specify whether he also challenges the decisions regarding the procedure for dismissal of the indictment. The Court, following its two requests for clarification of the Referral regarding the Applicant’s representation before the Court, on 10 February 2020 received the valid authorization for his representation by a lawyer from Ferizaj. Consequently, taking into account the fact that the Applicant only specified that he was challenging the Judgment of the Supreme Court, citing the issue of statute of limitation of the criminal offense which he is charged with, but did not provide a clear summary of facts regarding the proceedings before the courts, did not substantiate his request with all supporting documentation in procedural and substantive terms, and did not specify what is the relief sought of his request addressed to this Court, on 5 May 2020 sent a request to the legal representative to complete the Referral. Based on the acknowledgment of receipt, the legal representative received the letter of the Court on 8 May 2020, however, until the day of the adoption of this Decision, the Court did not receive a response to the letter of the Court of 5 May 2020.

Based on the abovementioned findings, the Court considered that the Applicant’s Referral does not meet the procedural criteria for further review, because it was  not completed with supporting documentation, as requested by the Court based on Article 22.4 of the Law and Rule 32 (2) (h) of the Rules of Procedure. Therefore, the Court, in accordance with Article 48 of the Law and Rule 35 (5) of the Rules of Procedure, held that the Referral is to be summarily rejected.