Constitutional Court

KI112/18, Applicant: Mehrije Rexha, Constitutional Review of the Judgment of the Supreme Court of Kosovo ARJ-UZVP.nr.43/2018 of 26 June 2018 

KI112/18, Resolution on Inadmissibility, adopted on 11 December 2019, published on 6 January 2019 

Keywords: individual referral, manifestly ill founded  

The Applicant, on an unspecified date, filed a lawsuit claiming ownership of a business premises. This ownership by Judgment C.nr.602/04 of the Municipal Court in Prishtina was approved on the basis of the immovable property sale contract of 12 March 1999 which the Applicant had provided as evidence in the Municipal Court.

Following this procedure, the set of criminal proceedings had begun, where the relevant contract of 12 March 1999 had turned out to contain elements of forgery. Finally, the Supreme Court decided to issue a rejection Judgment against the Applicant on the basis of statutory limitation of criminal prosecution, and, inter alia, stating that “the presentation of the contract of sale of the apartment with forged signatures in the litigation procedure, as proof, is definitely illegal and an incriminating action since this contract served her in the litigation procedure as proof of ownership”.

As a result of the criminal proceedings and a person’s complaint (S.R.), the Kosovo Cadastral Agency cancelled the registration on behalf of the Applicant of the relevant immovable property in the Immovable Property Rights Register. This is where the administrative dispute proceedings began, and the regular courts rejected the Applicant’s claim, arguing that based on the applicable legislation, she had not fulfilled the conditions and had not provided the documents to prove her right to property.

The Applicant alleged before the Court that she had been violated her constitutional rights for two reasons: (i) a violation of her right to the presumption of innocence, as guaranteed by paragraph 5 of Article 31 of the Constitution because, in her view, the regulars courts did not take into account the fact that the indictment against her was rejected and she was not tried and convicted of a criminal offense, and (ii) arbitrary and out of any procedure deprivation of her property ownership title on the business premises, as a consequence of the violation of her right to the presumption of innocence.

The Court, while examining the case, elaborated on the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and concluded that in the Applicant’s case her right to be presumed innocent was not violated by the decisions of the regular courts. The Court further concluded that the findings of the Basic Court, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court in the set of administrative conflict proceedings support their reasoning in the relevant legislation on the issue of documentation to prove the right to property.

Accordingly, the Court concluded that the Applicant’s Referral is manifestly ill founded on constitutional grounds, pursuant to Rule 39(2) of the Rules of Procedure.