 |
| Electoral College |
"The Electoral College of the Tirana Court of Appeal, after returning from the Advisory Chamber, finally decided: The dismissal of the lawsuit by the National Unity Party. This decision is final and there is no appeal against," the bodies with 5 judges announced at the end of today's session.
It was precisely the National Unity Party, which set the College in motion, as had previously requested by the Central Election Commission to be de-registrated from participating in the local elections, as the head of state had decided to cancel the June 30 elections. But the CEC had rejected this request. Recognizing as right, the Central Election Commission's decision, regarding the request of the National Unity Party, the College has recognized the June 30 as the date of the local elections.
According to the chairman of the National Unity Party Idajet Beqiri, "this was the core of our lawsuit. We asked the College: If the President's decree is lawful after it has been published in the Official Journal, then we must unregister and we can not proceed further. If the College says that this decree is absolutely invalid and there will be elections on June 30, then we will continue to compete."
Mr Beqiri's party is in coalition with the Socialists in these elections, and his lawsuit seems to be a majority effort to put in motion an institutional mechanism like the College, while it had considered it at first as an act of violation of the constitution the decision of President Meta.
The legal arguments based on which the College made today's decision have not been disclosed and are expected to be disclosed in the coming days when the reasoned decision of the College is published.
The Albanian opposition had previously estimated that the College was not competent to assess the President's decree, which according to it can only be interpreted by the Constitutional Court, which is out of function for the moment. And today, after a meeting of Democratic Party leader, Mr. Basha, with his allies, one of them - Dashamir Sheshi - stated that today's decision does not change anything in the opposition strategy: "There are some poor people in the College that have been able to take some tough decisions, but for themselves, not for us, because we no longer recognize these decisions. The next week we will go to every corner of Albania to face this new political junta or whatever name we can put in. We do not know these elections and there will be no polls on June 30".
The presidency had only a brief reaction from spokesman Tedi Blushi, according to whom the present act of the College does not constitute "any surprise from the long-ago orchestrated sketch".