Calling Kosovo’s Constitution: A Legal Review

Abstract

One of the world’s youngest constitutions, the Constitution of Kosovo not only summarises the international community’s prescribed obligations towards Kosovo’s polity and establishes the polity per se, but also determines Kosovo’s governing system and prescribes the rights and liberties of Kosovo’s citizens. The constitution also determines the extra rights of ethnic minorities and assigns guarantees for their participation in public life. The constitution, moreover, specifies its relationship with the Ahtisaari Plan and lays out the international civilian representative’s position in Kosovo. To better understand these attributes, this paper shall conduct both a legal review of the Kosovan Constitution and draw some conclusions about the governing system and model of democracy established by the constitution.

The post-independence civil service in Kosovo: A message of politicization

“…UNMIK, acting under this authority, therefore adopted the 'constitutional framework', which established the PISG, which, in turn, became widely considered to be a 'constitution for Kosovo'. 6 The constitutional framework established a list of requirements that would govern the PISG and define their role in relation to Kosovo's governance (see Doli and Korenica, 2010). The regulation on the executive branch of the provisional institutions of Kosovo, on the other hand, established the basic principles of Kosovo's civil service system by determining that Kosovo should have its provisional civil service composed of all communities living in Kosovo.…”

Legal and Political Contradictions in Kosovo: Limits of the Brussels Agreement

“…If the minority veto is understood as a suspense veto, 7 the Constitution meets this requirement as well. These arguments have convinced certain scholars that Kosovo successfully employs all four principles of consociational democracy (Doli & Korenica, 2010).…”