Constitutional Court

KI154/20, Applicant: Muhamet Buduri, Constitutional review of Judgment PML.No.295/2019 of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Kosovo of 22 November 2019

KI154/20, Resolution on Inadmissibility, adopted on 10 February 2020, published on 25 February 2021

Keywords: individual referral, out of time referral

The Applicant before the Court challenged the Judgment [PML. No. 295/2019] of 22 November 2019 of the Supreme Court in conjunction with Judgment [PAKR. No. 241/19] of 5 June 2019 of the Court of Appeals and Judgment [P. No. 68/18] of 22 March 2019 of the Basic Court, alleging that the latter was rendered in violation of his constitutional rights and freedoms established in Article 31 [Right to Fair and Impartial Trial] of the Constitution in conjunction with Article 6 (Right to a fair trial) of the European Convention on Human Rights. The challenged Judgment of the Supreme Court rejected the Applicant’s request for protection of legality against the respective Judgment of the Court of Appeals as ungrounded, and consequently upheld the sentence of the Applicant regarding the criminal offense of rape established in Article 230 (Rape) of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kosovo.

However, the Applicant submitted his Referral by mail service to the Court on 30 September 2020, more than eight (8) months after the receipt of the challenged act. More precisely, the acknowledgment of receipt submitted to the Court by the Basic Court confirms that the Applicant was served with the challenged Judgment on 16 January 2020. Therefore, the Court found that the Applicant’s Referral was submitted after the legal deadline of four (4) months, as stipulated by Law and Rule 39 (1) (c) of the Rules of Procedure, and is therefore inadmissible for review on merits.