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Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
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| Information | | |
Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
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13Jan16
Kosovo Constitutional Court Ex-President Indicted for Fraud
The Pristina Basic Prosecution said on Wednesday that Hasani had been indicted for falsification of an official document and abuse of office.
"As the president of the Constitutional Court, Enver Hasani abused his official duty in the case of a decision on the request of the President of Kosovo regarding her decree for the appointment or extension of the mandate of the three international judges of the Constitutional Court of Kosovo," the Special Prosecution Office said in a statement.
Hasani is accused of faking the signature of one of three international judges who serve on the court.
The court has three international judges, an American, a Bulgarian and Portuguese national, serving on its benches - a left-over from the days of international supervision of Kosovo.
They were reappointed last summer in what Kosovo's Ombudsman at the time claimed was a legally dubious procedure.
Allegations of irregularities emerged when BIRN obtained a memo from the EU rule-of-law mission in Kosovo, EULEX, which revealed that the mission strong-armed the Kosovo's President Atifete Jahjaga into accepting the appointments despite concerns from her office about the process of extending the judges' mandates without a vote in parliament.
The Ombudsman investigated the appointments and brought a case before the Constitutional Court, asking it to examine whether or not the appointment of the three judges was legal.
The court ruled the case inadmissible, which is what Kosovo's prosecution claims was an abuse of office by Hasani.
The prosecution also believes that Hasani falsified the name of the American judge on the document ruling inadmissibility, saying that the American was present when he actually was not.
The American judge subsequently told the Ombudsman that he was not present when the case was ruled inadmissible.
Another judge, the current president of the Constitutional Court, Arta Rama-Hajrizi has been cleared of any wrongdoing in connection with the issue and the investigation into her has been dropped.
In a separate ongoing case, Hasani was accused in July of falsifying documents for financial gain while he was rector of the University of Pristina.
[Source: By Valerie Hopkins, Balkan Insight, Birn, Pristina, 13Jan16]
Donate
Radio Nizkor
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