The full talk Albin Kurti gave at today's court session

The four deputies from the Vetevendosje Movement are present today at the Pristina Constitutional Court in connection with the drop of gas in the Kosovo Assembly. The court included Albin Kurti, who also delivered a speech that he posted on his Facebook account a few minutes ago.

Date: December 20, 2017

On the 2508.2015th, in Brussels, the agreement for the Association of Serb Major Communities has been signed, between then Kosovo Prime Minister, Isa Mustafa and his counterpart from Serbia, Aleksandar Vuciqi. A day later in 26.08.2015, the border demarcation agreement between Kosovo and Montenegro has been signed in Vienna, from the Kosovar side, former Deputy Prime Minister Hashim Thaci and Interior Minister Skender Hyseni, with their Montenegrin counterparts.

Both these agreements were signed when Kosovo's Assembly was on vacation. There was no plenary session in which the content and form of those agreements would be discussed. In June of that same year, the republic's Assembly, whose deputy I was at the time, has adopted a resolution under which a resolution should be discussed in the Republic Assembly, in advance, any international agreement, respectively, the Demarcation Agreement with Montenegro. In September and October 2015, we have alarmed public opinion in Kosovo, for these two undemocratic, unconstitutional, and harmful agreements for Kosovo and its future.

The Serbian majority municipalities' Association Agreement creates a new level of power in Kosovo, which will have full competence in the area of economic development, social care, urban and rural planning. It was supposed to have that association, to have its president, to have the Executive Board with seven members, and to have its own 30-member assembly. That association, or better to say Zajednica, earned the right to establish international relations with similar associations around the world. If Zajednica were installed, the Kosovo government's relationship with Serb majority municipalities would become mediated with Zajednica itself. A municipality should be approached through Zajednica and a municipality would be directed to us through Zajednica. The historical example was fresh, with April 26th 1991, fourteen Serb majority municipalities in Bosnia formed their association. That only in Bosnia and Herzegovina form their association. On January 9, 1992, they declare independence. On February 28, 1992, they win the Constitution. Meanwhile, on December 14, 1995, in Dayton, Ohio, international recognition of what is now Republika Srpska. We never had dilemmas, in the XXI century Serbia was trying to make Serbia big, with many smaller Serbia around. This is a copy of the Russian model where the Russian Federation has many satellites in the neighborhood, in the form of vassal parastates. Like in Kosovo, we were threatened by Bosnia and Herzegovina. We have neither been nor are against Serbs, but we are against Serbia, because it is against us both as state and nation. That is the fundamental reason why we have not wanted to allow the normalisation of that agreement in the country's institutions.

On the other hand, with the demarcation agreement with Montenegro, we lost 8,200 ha, down the border from the back of the mountain ranges, the Rugova Mountains, down the valley. We have considered water distribution to be natural criteria and effective control of the territory as political criteria, to precede any cadastral criteria. The demarcation of the border is a matter of the division of sovereignty among states, not of private property of citizens. Being convinced that we were losing territory we could not allow such an agreement to become a fact carried out in the institutions of the Republic. It has been an unforgivable mistake that the Kosovo side has agreed that we should have the burden of proof to prove that our land is our territory.

When we were unable to talk at the Assembly hearings on these issues in September and when the state leaders on the best occasion wanted to drop just a notice or information in the Parliament on the arrangements they had made, we started to organise protests both outside and within the Parliament, we practiced parliamentary disobedience because we could not allow ourselves to conduct almost anything normal happened on August 25th and 26th of 2015. We've been trying whistling pills, trying with eggs and water, trying with tear gas never allowing the normalisation of Zajednica in Kosovo Serbia's Zajednica in Kosovo, and Demarketing with Montenegro.

On December 23rd 2015, Kosovo's Constitutional Court has ruled in its act that Serbia's Zajednica -- a total of 23 articles in the Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo -- is in violation, respectively, not in accordance with it. In the request of the then-lady's president, Atifete Jahjaga, of the date of October 30th 2015, it also requires the provisional measure, with the cʹrast saying “one of the reasons for the physical obstacle of holding the Kosovo Parliament's plenary sessions is the opposition parties' claims of non-recompatibility to the content of the principles of the Acisolation”. Because of the situation created in the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo and the inability of the Parliament to develop normally, the president finds that the effect of Association principles should be suspended, as it is in public interest to avoid escalation of normality. Each chapter, of seven quarters, of the Association of Serb majority municipalities, contains elements that do not comply with the Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo. Article 74, of the Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo, says that Kosovo Assembly deputies exercise their position in the best interest of the Republic of Kosovo -- that is, on the date of 8,10.2015 -- and at the following hearings, we have been fully in exercising our office as Republican deputies for its best interest, as the Constitutional Court has further confirmed. The Association of Serb majority municipalities was designed to have additional competences, even which could be delegated by central authorities, thus determining a new degree of rights that could be increased but never reduced. After December 23rd 2015, no Kosovo Serb has staged a protest, but not even a letter of protest has sent why Zajednica was brought down, the only instance who was angry was what had done the project, and sent signs of protest, Belgrade. Therefore, the political context in which we acted as deputies of the Republic Assembly was the protection of social and legal goods, not from Kosovo citizens or communities in Kosovo, but from just a foreign state. If Serbia's Zajednica were installed in Kosovo, we would have two kinds of Albanians in Kosovo, the majority Albanians in Kosovo and the minority Albanians in Zajednica, because as long as we live in Kosovo over 92% Albanians, a quarter of the non-Serb population, and their overwhelming majority, of course, Albanians, would live in that Zajednica. She Zajednica would be immune to Kosovo institutions, but she herself would have the right to address courts in Kosovo, as far as the Constitutional Court. Zajednica would be founded by Kosovo institutions, but it could not then be dissolved by Kosovo institutions. It could only be dissolved with the decision of 2/3 of the member municipalities. The Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo could tear down the prime minister, the president of the Republic of Kosovo could break up Parliament, but neither the Parliament nor the Government nor the President could dismantle Zajednica, if it were formed. We have acted in an extreme situation where sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the functioning of the Republic were being violated, but we have also acted in an emergency situation. Today these dangers have not been eliminated, but they are considerably smaller than they were two years ago. And I'm so happy about that!

It is extremely important that our actions of resistance, of protest, are not cut off from the reason for our purpose. The chronology of developments from smoke in the hall cannot be interrupted because it's all reduced to the gas show, where in every show what's interesting and interesting is what you see and just what you see, not what you think and believe. Our action is not reflectible in the image of the TV show. So to understand our action, you need to control your mind and your heart, not just your eye. So far this judicial process has been guided with the focus of smoke's eye, mindless and heartless. We are convinced that by our political and public actions we have benefited Kosovo and prevented major damage. Our effects, however, are so small that they are too insignificant, so tiny that they are completely unstable. The protection of the criminal rate is the protection of social and legal goods within the assigned territory. We MPs who have taken political shares within the authorisations that trust us in the Constitution of Kosovo have taken actions that have taken full social and judicial legitimacy. On the one hand, we have the signing of over 205 thousand citizens, who oppose these two agreements, and that represents political legitimacy, while on the other hand, we have the decision of the highest constitutional authority, which represents the final instance of interpretation of the Constitution, the Constitutional Court, respectively, judicial legitimacy. These two constitute the legitimate core of our actions for political opposition to these agreements, which have affected both social and legal goods, already established and legally. Since these two agreements have affected the social and legal benefits of the state of Kosovo, this procedure makes no sense. The criminal rate this court is trying to implement has lost the sense of protection, simply the articles of the Criminal Code in this case have nothing to protect. The protection target of these criminal norms would have to be the actions of those who have taken political action with whom they have affected the social and legal benefits of the state of Kosovo. Thank you.