The Supreme Court of Kosovo has rejected a appeal filed by two members of the Self -Determination Movement (LVV) against a decision of the Electoral Panel on Appeals and Appeals (SPAP) to order the Central Election Commission (CEC) to certify the Serbian List for participation in local elections.
“The appeal filed by Sami Kurteshi and Alban Krasniqi is dismissed as unlawful,” reads the Supreme 28 ruling.
The court said that “given the fact that the appeal against the ECAP’s decision in the Supreme Court was filed by Sami Kurteshi and Alban Krasniqi in the capacity of the individual CEC member, they have no right, namely they do not have the legitimacy to file a complaint on their behalf personally, since they are not direct parties under the SPAP decision.”
“This is due to the fact that according to the assessment of the College of this Right Court to file a appeal to the Supreme Court against the SPAP decision, in addition to persons with legal interest (defined by paragraph 1 of Article 119), only its CEC, respectively, as defined by the Law on General Elections, respectively Article 2, express their opinion during the decision-making process within the CEC, but are not legitimized to act as individual parties in court proceedings, as is the case, ”reads the ruling.
The ECAP ordered last week the Electoral Commission to certify the largest Serbian party in Kosovo-which enjoys the support of official Belgrade-a few days after it was denied registration for participation in the October 12 elections.
The two members of the LVV at the CEC, Kurteshi and Krasniqi were the only ones who voted against the certification of this party. This case was almost a repetition of the case of February’s general elections, when the LVV had opposed the Serbian List participation to the supreme election, but to no avail.
The decision to certify the Serbian List has been criticized by QUINT countries and the European Union, which called on the government in office and political parties not to take any other step to prevent the registration of the Serbian List for the October elections.
The Serbian List decided to compete in this year’s local elections, after boycotting past local elections, causing Albanian mayors to seize and maintain power in the four Serb -majority municipalities in the north of May 2023.
If certified, the Serbian List is expected to recover all four northern municipalities: North Mitrovica, Leposavic, Zvecan and Zubin Potok./ REL
