Constitutional Court

KI42/19, Applicant: Muhamet Prapashtica, constitutional review of Judgment PML. No. 243/2018 of the Supreme Court of Kosovo of 12 November 2018

KI42/19, resolution on inadmissibility of 10. November 2020, published on 3 December 2020. 

Keywords: individual referral, manifestly ill-founded referral

The circumstances of the present case relate to an accident that occurred in 2008 at one of the points of sale of the company „M-Gas Petroll“, the point for which, based on the case file, the Applicant, as the owner of the company “M-Gas Petroll”, did not possess  the necessary documentation. The accident resulted in deaths, injured and material damage.

The Basic Court found the Applicant guilty of the criminal offense of causing general danger, also holding that this criminal offense was committed through negligence, but, taking into account the fact that the latter resulted in the death of one or more persons, it sentenced the Applicant to 4 (four) years and 10 (ten) months of imprisonment. The guilt of the accused, namely the Applicant, was also established by (i) the Judgment of the Court of Appeals, which rejected all allegations of violation of the provisions of criminal procedure and criminal law and erroneous and incomplete determination of factual situation as ungrounded, thus modifying the Judgment of lower instance court only in relation to the decision on the punishment, namely its reduction to only 2 (two) years of imprisonment; and (ii) the Judgment of the Supreme Court, which also rejected all allegations of violation of the provisions of criminal procedure and criminal law as ungrounded, thus upholding the Judgment of the lower instance court.  The Applicant challenges the findings of the Supreme Court before the Court, alleging a violation (i) of Article 31 [Right to Fair and Impartial Trial] of the Constitution, focusing on erroneous application and erroneous interpretation of criminal law and criminal procedure; and (ii) Article 23 [Human Dignity] of the Constitution, without a clear and adequate reasoning.

The Court addressed the Applicant’s allegations by applying the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, on the basis of which the Court, based on Article 53 [Interpretation of Human Rights Provisions] of the Constitution, is obliged to interpret the fundamental rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. With regard to the allegations of violation of Article 31 of the Constitution, the Court noted that based on the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the already consolidated case law of the Court, the allegations related to the interpretation of the law and the determination of facts are not, in principle, the issues falling within the jurisdiction of the Court. The Court, however, in the circumstances of this case, assessed each allegation of the Applicant, with special emphasis on the allegations of violation of Article 7 (General Duty to Establish a Full and Accurate Record) of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Republic of Kosovo and Article 20 (Causal link) of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kosovo, and found that the latter are manifestly ill-founded on constitutional basis. In the Court’s view, the regular courts did not “apply the law in manifestly erroneous manner” resulting in “arbitrary conclusions” or “manifestly unreasonable” for the Applicant. In fact, the proceeding in its entirety was fair and not arbitrary. Whereas, with regard to the allegations of violation of Article 23 of the Constitution, the Court emphasized that based on the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the already consolidated case law of the Court, unsubstantiated allegations and without relying on relevant facts and arguments, cannot to be reviewed by the Court, and consequently, based on the Law on the Constitutional Court and its Rules of Procedure, are also manifestly ill-founded on constitutional basis.

Therefore, in accordance with Article 113.7 of the Constitution, Article 47 of the Law on the Constitutional Court and Rules 39 (2) and 59 (2) of the Rules of Procedure, the Court unanimously decided that the Referral is inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded on constitutional basis.