New Constitutional Court head takes post

TIRANA, Sep. 27 – Bashkim Dedja was handed Monday the post of the head of the Constitutional Court.
President Bamir Topi, who had decreed him as a Constitutional Court judge only earlier this year, held the ceremony in his office where Dedja’s predecessor Vladimir Kristo was also present.
The post had been vacant since June and had sparked a conflict between the president and the governing Democratic Party.
Last week Topi decreed Dedja for the post only after parliament Speaker Jozefina Topalli said that he had been going against the constitution for leaving the post as vacant.
The president has been in a friction with the Democrats, whom he previously served as deputy leader, when it comes to nominating the judges for the top legal institutions –Constitutional Court and Supreme Court.
Topi is still waiting for the parliament to discuss four nominations for the Constitutional Court and three for the Supreme Court. Earlier this year the parliament in two occasions turned down some of his nominations.
Dedja was voted last week without debate and with only the votes of the ruling Democratic Party majority. The Socialists have been boycotting any voting in parliament since July in protest against the alleged vote count manipulation of last year’s parliamentary elections, which have deadlocked the politics and the country.