The Constitutional Court of Kosovo has published the full verdict regarding the election of the Deputy Speaker of the Assembly from the ranks of the Serbian community, emphasizing that the Deputy Speaker is proposed by the majority of deputies from this community.

The full judgment is published a few days after the Constitutional Court published a notice regarding this decision regarding the election of Nenad Rašić to the position of Deputy Speaker during the previous legislature, finding that he was elected in violation of the Constitution and the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly.

"The candidate for Deputy President of the Assembly from among the deputies of the Serbian community is proposed by the majority of the deputies of the Serbian community; while the candidate for Deputy President of the Assembly from among the deputies of other communities that are not in the majority is proposed by the majority of the deputies of other communities that are not in the majority, in accordance with the formal requirements and in good faith," the judgment states.

Rašić, leader of the For Freedom, Justice and Survival party, was elected vice president from the ranks of the Serbian community in October 2025, through a lottery initiated by the Speaker of the Assembly, Dimal Basha.

The draw was organized after the Serbian List – which had nine deputies and will have the same number in the new legislature – did not receive the necessary votes, and the draw was organized.

His election was contested by the Serbian List, the main Serb party in Kosovo that has the support of Belgrade.

Since then, the Assembly has been dissolved and the country has held elections, and the Constitutional Court has said that her ruling does not have retroactive effect.

So, this means that this decision does not apply to cases before it enters into force, but to those that will be taken in the future.

The court said that the right to propose the vice-president from among the Serb community belongs to the majority of deputies from this minority.

The verdict stated that the activation of the lottery unblocking mechanism, "exceptional circumstances must arise, in which case the majority of deputies from communities that are not in the majority would not propose candidates."

The highest legal institution in the country said that in this specific case, nine candidates from the Serbian community were voted in three times each, after being proposed by their representative.

"Consequently, the Court assesses that the majority of deputies from the ranks of the Serb community have exercised their right to propose a deputy of the Assembly, respectively, a member of the Presidency of the Assembly, and following the request from the elected Speaker of the Assembly to propose the remaining unvoted deputy from the ranks of the Serb community, the representative of the majority of deputies from the ranks of the Serb community requested the re-nomination of candidates from this majority based on the right defined in paragraph 4 of Article 67 of the Constitution in conjunction with subparagraph 1 of paragraph 6 of Article 12 of the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly," the judgment said.

The decision states that while it is up to the Assembly to assess the circumstances that make it necessary to activate the unblocking mechanisms, "The Court strongly emphasizes that these mechanisms cannot be used as a regular procedure for electing the President/Deputy Presidents, but only in certain circumstances, when such a thing is necessary to unblock the process of constituting the Assembly and only to the extent that such a thing serves the constitutional purpose for which these mechanisms were established."

"In principle, as previously stated, proposals from parliamentary groups or MPs who enjoy the right to propose, in the spirit of trust and cooperation, must aim to achieve consensus, secure the necessary votes and result in the election of candidates as proposed and as provided for by the Constitution. Furthermore, based on the aforementioned constitutional provisions, this principle is of particular importance for guaranteeing the right to representation of communities that are not in the majority, which do not have the necessary number to ensure the election of their own representatives in the Presidency of the Assembly," the judgment states.

The Constitutional Court says that the lottery cannot be used as a mechanism in circumstances where the majority of the Assembly members would determine the representative of a non-majority community, without the proposal of this community, as it argues that this would, "essentially, constitute a circumvention of constitutional guarantees and those set out in the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly."

After the announcement of the verdict, published by the Constitutional Court on December 28, the Speaker of the Assembly, Dimal Basha, criticized it, assessing that it contained "fundamental errors in the interpretation and application of the relevant norms."

He assessed that the Constitutional Court's claims "are unfounded" regarding the election of the vice president from among the Serbian community.

Basha stated that Rašić was not proposed by the majority of Serbian MPs, because as he argued, there was no proposal from the majority of these MPs.

"In other words, the Constitutional Court itself is admitting that the majority of deputies from the Serbian community did not propose Mr. Rashic, so we were dealing with a refusal, or in other words, a non-proposition on their part," Basha wrote on social media.

On October 16, 2025, the Serbian List filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court regarding the election of the Deputy Speaker of the Assembly from among the Serb community, claiming that the Constitution, the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly, as well as a previous judgment of the Constitutional Court, were violated.

The highest court in the country had already handled a complaint by the Serbian List regarding the issue of deputy speakers, after the Speaker of Parliament Dimal Basha declared the Assembly constituted without the election of a fifth deputy speaker from the Serbian community.

The Court then found that the Assembly was not constituted, requiring the deputies to elect the deputy speaker from among the Serb community, in order to pave the way for the formation of the Government.

In that decision, the Constitutional Court said that the proposal for the deputy speaker from among the non-majority communities, in this case the Serbian minority, must be made by the majority or the largest number of deputies from among the deputies of the Serbian community. /REL