Constitutional Court

KI41/17, Applicants: Met Hashani, Kastriot Hashani and Lirim Hashani,  Constitutional review of Judgment Pml. no. 252/2016 of the Supreme Court of Kosovo of 02 November 2016

KI41/17, Resolution on inadmissibility of 21 February 2018, published on 19 April 2018.

Key words: individual referral, constitutional review of the Judgment of the Supreme Court of Kosovo, criminal procedure, manifestly ill-founded

The Referral is based on Article 113.7 of the Constitution, Articles 47 of Law no. 03/L-121 on the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Kosovo, and Rule 29 of the Rules of Procedure of the Constitutional Court.

The Applicants were the injured party in the criminal case [P. No. 581/2011], which was conducted before the District Court in Prishtina, which found the perpetrators R.A., F.A., and SH.V. guilty and liable for having committed the criminal offences, thereby imposing sentencing them to imprisonment and fining them. However, the District Court did not serve the Judgment on the injured party–Applicants.

Following the appeal of the Public District Prosecutor’s Office against the said judgment, the Supreme Court rendered Judgment [Ap. no. 181/2012], whereby it approved the appeal of the Public District Prosecutor’s Office and modified the judgment of the first-instance court  concerning the adult R.A., and remanded the part related to F.A. and SH.A. to the District Court for retrial.

The Applicants filed an appeal with the Court of Appeals against the Judgment [P. no. 581/2011] of the District Court of 16 March 2012 and later with the Supreme Court but only as regards the part related to the sentence imposed on R.A. The proceedings were concluded by the judgment of the Supreme Court whereby the request for protection of legality was declared as ungrounded.

The Applicants allege that their rights guaranteed by Article 31 and 32 of the Constitution were violated because they were not afforded the opportunity to participate in the trial in which the perpetrators were found guilty and punished.

The Court notes that the Applicants did not submit an appropriate form of the request to the Supreme Court; nor did they submit the appropriate form to the Court of Appeals, but they filed a request for protection of legality, namely an appeal against a final judgment, which is not in accordance with the relevant legal provisions.

The Court finds that the Applicants have neither substantiated their allegations, nor demonstrated clearly how their constitutional rights have been violated.

Based on the foregoing, the Applicant’s referral is manifestly ill-founded on constitutional basis and must, therefore, be declared inadmissible.