Constitutional Court

KI54/17, Applicant: Habib Morina, Constitutional review of Decision PN. no. 275/2017 of the Court of Appeals of the Republic of Kosovo, of 14 April 2017  

KI54/17, Resolution on inadmissibility, approved on 21 February 2018 and published on 05.04.2018

Key words: Individual referral, criminal proceedings, equality before the law, right to fair trial, manifestly ill-founded referral, inadmissible referral

The Applicant challenged Decision PN. no. 275/2017 of the Court of Appeals of the Republic of Kosovo, of 14 April 2017. He alleged that his rights guaranteed by Articles 24 [Equality before the Law] and 31 [Right to Fair and Impartial Trial] of the Constitution had been violated by the challenged decision. The Applicant linked all his allegations related to the violation of his constitutional rights to the rejection of his request to reject the indictment foreseen by Article 251 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

In this case, the Court considered that the proceedings for confirming the indictment had been conducted in line with the principle of contradictority, meaning that the Applicant had had the opportunity to oppose, during the trial before the regular courts, the reasons not favorable for the charges brought up against him and use them in his favor. Finally, the Court found that the referral had to be declared inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded because the Applicant had failed to substantiate on constitutional basis his claims regarding the alleged violation of his constitutional rights. Therefore, in line with Article 113.7 of the Constitution, Articles 20 and 48 of the Law, and Rules 36 (1) (d), (2) (b) and (d) and 52 (2), the Referral was declared inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded.