Constitutional Court blasted for "cowardly act" (B92)
Slobodan Samardzic says the Constitutional Court lacked both professional and moral capabilities to determine the constitutionality of the Brussels agreement.
Instead, said the former official and MP of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) and former cabinet minister, the court went along with the "pseudo-legal" interpretation of the justice minister, "and declared this anti-constitutional document to be a political act."
"With this cowardly act the court has trampled on the Serbian Constitution and the basic principles of the legal profession," he told the Beta agency.
Samardzic was vice-president of the DSS when he asked the court to assess whether the agreement, reached in April 2013 during the EU-sponsored Belgrade-Pristina talks, was in line with the Constitution. According to him, the agreement seriously violates the country's highest legal act.
Justice Minister Nikola Selakovic, on the other hand, said earlier this year that the court should say it has no competence in the matter, "as it is a political, not a legal issue."
Commenting on media reports that the court made a decision to this effect, Samardzic said:
"The Constitutional Court's intention to take shelter from hanging out in the legal and political wind in the lee of the so-called purely legal issues, was dishonorable."
"As far as this court is concerned, the Brussels agreement, as an act of surrendering Kosovo and Metohija to the Albanians, has no legal consequences. Is Serbia turning into a legally unrestricted autocracy? With this decision, the Constitutional Court joined the ranks of administrative organs that carry out the government's orders," Samardzic, who now heads the State-Building Movement ("Drzavotvorni Pokret"), was quoted as saying.