Albania's Constitutional Court Breaks Down DP Case on Migrant Agreement

Albania's Constitutional Court has dropped the Democratic Party's indictment of the immigrant agreement.

The Judges' College has decided not to accept the official DP indictment, under the argument that the political force is not legitimised as subject to the tribunal because its direct interest in the constitutional issue is not proven.

That's why the indictment demanded as the subject of The DP with chairman Lulzim Basha has collapsed, as the DP must show there is direct interest.

Meanwhile, the Constitutional Court has accepted the request of 30 Democratic Party deputies, who called for the first step in suspending ratification of the agreement and then abolishing it as unconstitutional.

Which prompted the suspension of the vote to parliament's passage of the agreement at the 14 December session.

On January 18th, the Constitutional Court is expected to hold the stage in which the DP deputies' request for abolishing or not abolishing the agreement will be considered.

The reasons why the DP's request was rejected under the Constitutional Policy:

According to Article 134, provisions 1 of the Constitution, political parties have the right to set constitutional judgment in motion. However, according to Article 134, provisions 2 of the Constitution have the obligation to prove the necessary link that should exist between their interests and the constitutional issue raised. The same condition for proving the interest in the case of international agreements is envisioned at Article 52, verse 2.

The court also praised its jurisdiction regarding the legitimacy of political parties in the abstract procedures of norms, in which their status has indicated, in the sense of Article 9 of the Constitution, as parliamentary parties or the role they play in forming the political will of electors in all areas of public life, does not ensure that political parties' interest in putting the Court in motion under 134 points of the constitution. Interest is considered justified if it manages to be proven by the political party itself that the negative consequences are direct, real, and, in the case, closely related to its functions (see VVV. 28, the date 30,06,2021 of the Constitutional Court.

The Judges' Meeting also estimated that the possibility of political parties moving constitutional control exists in the case of international agreements, for which their interest should also be justified. Stand by the Court in Constitutional Judgment of the Sea Agreement (court No. 15,04.2010) is not applicable in the concrete case, as in that case, the Court legitimised the parliamentary political party in the context of a particular institutional situation related to the developing procedures of the new parliamentary legislature and the verification of new MPs' mandates. Analyzing this jurisdiction, the Judges' Meeting concluded that current institutional developments are different from those in the case of the sea deal, as the Parliament's legislature is fully functional and there is no obstacle to other unconditional subjects (including 1/5th of MPs), as was the case in the sea agreement to set constitutional judgment in motion. It is also noteworthy that the Court is already considering the constitutionality of the “protocol for strengthening co-operation in the area of migration”.

As of earlier, the Judges' Meeting concluded that the researcher, the Democratic Party of Albania, did not legitimise the personial rank of the Court, as it did not prove its direct interest in the constitutional issue raised in the sense that the protocol had brought negative consequences to its status or functions, so it decided that the failure to pass the case for examination at the plenary session, meaning that the researchers' research and claims cannot be considered at their foundation.