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The Constitutional Court of Kosovo ruled that the election of Nenad Rashić to the position of Deputy Speaker of the Assembly from the ranks of the Serbian community in the previous legislature was not in accordance with the Constitution and the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly.
In announcing the ruling, the Court said on January 28 that it "in the circumstances of the specific case, it has no 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.
Even in the new legislature, resulting from the early elections on December 28, the Srpska List is expected to have nine deputies, while Rašić has one. Therefore, based on this decision, it will be up to the Srpska List, as the party with the most deputies from among the Serbs, to propose the candidate for Deputy Speaker of the Assembly.
Rašić was elected in October last year, after the nominees from the Serbian List - which had nine MPs - did not receive the necessary votes, and a draw was organized.
The Constitutional Court said that the right to propose the vice-president from among the Serb community belongs to the majority of deputies from this minority.
"Consequently, the election of MP Mr. Nenad Rashic to the position of Deputy Speaker of the Assembly did not come as a proposal from the majority of MPs from the Serbian community, nor was there a refusal to exercise this right by the majority of MPs from the Serbian community. Consequently, the Court found that, in the circumstances of the specific case, the unblocking mechanisms were not used in accordance with the spirit and purpose for which they were intended ," the Constitutional Court's judgment stated.
The highest judicial body in Kosovo said that unblocking mechanisms, such as only casting a name up to three times in a vote and the lottery procedure, " should only be used in exceptional circumstances and for the purpose for which they were determined, namely in function of the constitution of the Assembly ", so that the legislative body can be constituted within the 30-day deadline.
"As elaborated in the judgment, the implementation of these mechanisms in a manner that would enable the majority of the Assembly deputies to designate the representative of a community that is not in the majority, without the proposal of the deputies of that community, would essentially constitute a circumvention of the formal guarantees set out in the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly. This is because the proposal of candidates for deputy presidents from among the communities that are not in the majority is the right of the majority of the deputies of those communities ," the decision said.
The issue of the deputy speakers of the Kosovo Assembly
On October 16, 2025, the Serbian List – the largest Serb party in Kosovo that enjoys the support of Belgrade – 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 ninth legislature of Kosovo was constituted on October 10, with the election of Nenad Rashiq as deputy speaker from the Serbian community.
His election was made after all nine deputies from the Serbian List, despite being put to the vote three times, did not receive the necessary votes.
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 vice-president 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.
After the Serbian List deputies did not receive a sufficient number of votes, the Speaker of the Assembly, Dimal Basha, requested that the election of the Serbian deputy speaker proceed through a draw, enabling the other Serbian deputy, Nenad Rashic from the For Freedom, Justice and Survival party, to be elected deputy speaker.
Rashic was a minister in Albin Kurti's government, leading the Department for Communities and Returns.
The Serbian List has argued that the election of Rašić is "illegitimate" and warned that the elections will lose their meaning if the majority of Albanian MPs impose representatives on Serbs, thus legalizing "the violence of the majority against the minority."
A day after Rashiq's election, Kosovo's president, Vjosa Osmani, had mandated the leader of the Vetëvendosje Movement, Albin Kurti, to form a new government. However, neither Kurti nor the second candidate, Glauk Konjufca, managed to form a government and the country went to new elections on December 28./ REL
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