The Jurisdiction of Constitutional Court of Kosovo to Assess the Constitutionality of Constitutional Amendments

• Main Author: Luz Balaj
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Danubius University 2018-11-01
• Series: Acta Universitatis Danubius: Juridica
• Subjects: Constitutional assessment; constitutional amendment; human rights; unconstitutional amendment
• Online Access: http://journals.univ-danubius.ro/index.php/juridica/article/view/5119/4699
• ISSN: 1844-8062; 2065-3891

The Constitutional Court of Kosovo has been established in 2009. From its establishment until now, the Constitutional Court has, in several occasions, dealt with the assessment of constitutional amendments. Concretely, there were 7 attempts for the amendment of the Constitution, however not all of them succeeded. The Constitutional Court played an active role in the constitutional review of the constitutional amendments in these processes, finding in several occasions that the proposed constitutional amendments were in violation of the letter and spirit of the Constriction. This paper examines the jurisdiction of the Constitutional Court for the review of constitutional amendments. Further, this paper examines the reasons provided by the Court in cases when it exercised jurisdiction for constitutional review of constitutional amendments. This paper examines and provides answers in the following research questions: what aspects of the Constitution have been challenged by unconstitutional amendments; has the Constitutional Court expanded its constitutional competences for constitutional review of constitutional amendments beyond Chapter II of the Constitution. This paper employs and uses comparative research methods by looking at other countries and regions as well, such as Germany and Colombia. This paper concludes by looking at whether the expansion in constitutional review competences has been adequate and in service of more efficient protection of the constitutional values.