Seven years have passed since the Kosovo Constitutional Court, after a 16-year-long process, confirmed the Supreme Court’s decision that 24 hectares of land belong to the Visoki Decani monastery. The decision, however, is yet to be implemented, that is, the land has not been registered in the cadastre. Like every year, international officials, including ambassadors of the Quint countries and the EU, once again called on the Kosovo government to urgently register the Decani monastery’s land.
For the second time in a week, the Heads of the Embassies of France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union reacted with a statement. This time, they reiterated that seven years have passed since the Decani Constitutional court decision.
In a statement, they repeated their call for the Government of Kosovo to fully and quickly carry out the lawful registration of the Decani Monastery’s land.
The ambassadors stated that : “In May 2016, the Kosovo Constitutional Court confirmed the Decani Monastery’s ownership of several hectares of land. Despite this legal decision and subsequent petitions, seven years later the Court’s decision has still not been implemented.”
“We are united in support of Kosovo’s democratic and European future.
Enforcing the rule of law and respecting judicial independence are obligations for all democratically elected governments and necessary preconditions for Kosovo’s integration into European and Euro-Atlantic institutions, including further progress on Kosovo’s application to join the Council of Europe. Further delay is only an obstacle to that progress,” they added.
Osmani in the US 10 days ago: I am „concerned“ over the court’s decision as it is discriminatory
Unlike the Quint countries, Kosovo authorities continue to refuse to implement the decision of their own Constitutional Court, while top Kosovo officials even go so far as to criticize it.
Earlier this month, Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani said that she was „concerned“ by the decision of the Kosovo Constitutional Court on the Visoki Decani monastery, describing it as „Milosevic’s decision“ and „discriminatory“.
„The fact that this issue is Milosevic’s decision worries me. Even UNMIK determined that any decisions or laws from 1989 to 1999 should not be applied due to their discriminatory nature,“ Osmani said ten days ago in the US.
Despite that, the Constitutional Court of Kosovo decided to confirm it „for some reason“, she added.
Furthermore, the Kosovo president expressed concern that such a decision could create a „dangerous precedent for every one of Milosevic’s decision that were made in 1999“.
„That would create complete confusion about who owns which property, because as you know, under Milosevic, all decisions were arbitrary,“ Osmani said at the time.
Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Minister of Culture and Sports Hajrulla Ceku, as well as other officials, have also repeatedly made similar allegations.
700 ha of land taken from the monastery in 1946
Seven hundred hectares of land were seized from the Visoki Decani Monastery in 1946. However, the state of Serbia returned 24 hectares to the monastery in 1997. The monastery, when combined with the twenty hectares it previously owned, was the in possession of 55 hectares of land.
This return of 24 hectares was regularly recorded in the cadaster, but since 1999, the local Kosovo authorities do not recognize that this land belongs to the monastery. Although the monastery continues to use the land, municipal authorities are beginning to challenge the ownership of the monasteries over these 24 hectares.
UNMIK then decided that the monastery could continue to use this property until the dispute is settled in court.
After 16 years of dispute over the ownership of the monastery land in the municipality of Decani, the Constitutional Court of Kosovo reached a decision in May 2016 confirming the previous decision of the Supreme Court in 2012 on the confirmation of Visoki Decani monastery’s ownership rights of the 24 hectares of land.
The decision caused conflicting reactions in Kosovo society, with the harshest criticism coming from the municipal leadership, which still refuses to implement the court’s decision and to register the monastery’s ownership of the land in the cadaster.
Preuzimanje i objavljivanje tekstova sa portala KoSSev nije dozvoljeno bez navođenja izvora. Hvala na poštovanju etike novinarske profesije.
