Constitutional Court

KI124/20, Applicant: MuhamedAli Ceyşülmedine, Constitutional review of Judgment UZVP. ARJ. no. 139/2019 of the Supreme Court, of 18 November 2019

KI124/20, Resolution on Inadmissibility, adopted on 21 January 2021, published on 05 February 2021

Key words: individual referral, manifestly ill-founded referral, “unsupported and unsubtantiated” allegations, inadmissible referral.

The circumstances of the present case relate to the Applicant’s request to the Office of Civil Status in the Municipality of Prizren for the issuance of the Death Certificate of his late mother. The Applicant, dissatisfied with the surname placed in this certificate, in the Office of Civil Status in the Municipality of Prizren submitted a request for correction of the surname in Basic Birth Register, Marriage Register and Basic Death Register. The Civil Registry Office and the Complaints Review Commission at the Civil Registration Agency rejected the Applicant’s complaint as ungrounded. The Applicant subsequently addressed the regular courts which also rejected his request as ungrounded. The first, namely the Basic Court, dismissed it for non-payment of court fees; the second, namely the Court of Appeals, dismissed it as inadmissible; while the Supreme Court upheld the Resolution of the Court of Appeals regarding the out of time limit appeal. The Applicant, as explained above, challenges these findings before the Court, alleging violation of Articles 3 [Equality before the Law], 24 [Equality before the Law], 31 [Right to Fair and Impartial Trial] and 54 [Judicial Protection of Rights] of the Constitution. In support of the allegations on violation of these constitutional Articles, the Applicant states that (i) the Court of Appeals did not take into consideration his reasoning that the appeal filed after the deadline to the Court of Appeals was as a result of his illness; and (ii) the surname of his deceased mother is forged, requesting from the Court respective “correction of the surname”.

The Court, after assessing the allegations of the Applicant, applying also the standards of the case law of European Court of Human Rights and the case law of the Court, considered that the Applicant’s allegations are “unsupported or unsubstantiated” allegations. This is because the Applicant only mentioned the violation of the articles of the Constitution, providing no reasoning and no substantiation for his allegations about the way the challenged Judgment of the Supreme Court, including the decisions of the lower courts, may have resulted in a violation of his fundamental rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Articles 3, 24, 31 and 54 of the Constitution, respectively. Consequently, the Court found that the Referral of the Applicant is inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded on constitutional basis, as defined by paragraph (2) of Rule 39 of the Rules of Procedure.