The use and misuse of Strasbourg case-law by a constitutional court: the case of Kosovo

The Kosovo Constitution requires that its human rights provisions "be interpreted consistent with the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights." But an unprecedented reliance on ECtHR case-law has led to déni de justice in four randomly selected rulings of the nation's constitutional court. The Court classified the decisions as reopening proceedings cases, then wrongly stated that Article 6 ECHR does not apply to such cases. Through a comparative approach, this article argues that the Kosovar court used Strasbourg case-law in an arbitrary and inappropriate manner. The national court placed itself in the shoes of the Strasbourg tribunal and cited rulings for what they do not say. The Kosovar adjudicator abstained from its constitutional jurisdiction, effectively calling non-liquet and denying justice to the aggrieved.