Nikolic accused of "open abuse of presidential office"
The opposition Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) on Thursday accused President Tomislav Nikolic of openly abusing his presidential role.
(kosovocompromisestuff) Thursday, May 09, 2013
The party reacted after Nikolic late on Wednesday told Serbia's public broadcaster that he "asked" the Constitutional Court to halt its evaluation of the constitutionality of the Kosovo agreements reached in Brussels.
DSS spokesman Petar Petkovic said the party considered this to be anti-constitutional and unlawful activity of the president, and that the court was now expected to publicly state that it will not allow Nikolic to interfere in its work.
"Apart from unlawfully meddling in the work of the Constitutional Court, his demand is legally nonsensical, because future laws cannot influence the evaluation of the constitutionality of the already adopted acts," Petkovic said in a written statement.
The Constitutional Court should now demonstrate that it is not obeying the authorities, and instead act independently and find, based on the Constitution, whether the Brussels agreements conform to the country's highest legal act.
Nikolic told the news last night that he "asked both the parliament speaker and the Constitutional Court to wait for the agreement with Priština, and for a law on essential autonomy to out of it, before judging whether the draft law was constitutional."
