Under the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century and until 1912, Kosovo had the status of a vilayet, with few changes from today’s territory. The Ottoman state adopted a written constitution in 1876, but quickly suspended it to restore it in 1908.
In 1912, the Ottoman Empire disintegrated while the Albanians failed to form the ethnic state with Kosovo, part of it. On November 28, 1912 in Vlora, 42 delegates, including representatives of Kosovo, headed by Ismail Qemalin “decided that today Albania should be independent, free and independent” with a temporary government. The Conference of Ambassadors in London, which started on December 17, 1912, recognized Albania as a state, with a foreign prince at its head.
In 1918, Kosovo merged into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which was meanwhile renamed Yugoslavia. It did not enjoy autonomy, and was divided into several districts provided by the constitution of 1921, which remained in force until 1929, when King Alexander I concentrated all power in his own hands.
According to the Yugoslav constitution of 1931, Kosovo was divided into three districts, Morava, Zeta and Vardar. This constitution was suspended in 1941, with the Italian and German occupation, in which case a part of Kosovo joined Albania, under the constitution established by King Victor Emmanuel III in 1939. In 1943, Albania nominally restored the constitution of King Zog, of 1928.
It is interesting that Kosovo had an undefined status until 1945, when the armed Albanian uprising was extinguished and Tito introduced military administration.
An assembly of an unelected body met in July 1945 in Prizren and decided that Kosovo should join federal Serbia, which represents an act of annexation. Of the 142 members of this body, only 33 were Albanians. The resolution was adopted by acclamation and without any speech on the subject.
The autonomy of Kosovo is the result of several decades of evolution.
After the Second World War, Kosovo with the first Constitution of the People’s Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, approved on January 31, 1946, was defined as an autonomous territorial-administrative unit within Serbia called the “Autonomous Region of Kosovo and Metohija (KAKM)”. Kosovo did not even have the status of a province, which Vojvodina had. This was the violent union of Kosovo with Serbia. Kosovo gained a kind of constitution in 1946, while the Albanian majority gained official minority status. The 1950s and 1960s marked the growth of state terror on Albanians, producing large waves of denationalization and emigration to Turkey.
With the Constitution of April 7, 1963, RFPJ is transformed into the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, while Kosovo is declared an Autonomous Region. In the same year, the Statute of the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija was approved, as part of the constitutional changes within Yugoslavia and Serbia. This Statute defined Kosovo as a social and political community within the Republic of Serbia, established as an autonomous unit in 1945 by the Decision of the Assembly of Serbia. Kosovo did not have a constitutional status at the federal level.
According to the Statute, the Provincial Assembly was the highest representative political body, while the Provincial Executive Council was the executive political body of the Assembly. The branch of the Supreme Court of Serbia was formed in Pristina. In addition to the fact that Albanians and Turks were equal in their rights, this Statute provided that in the higher schools and faculties in the territory of Kosovo, teaching can be organized in the Albanian language, respectively in Turkish.
This unfavorable political position of Kosovo began to change in favor of the enrichment of autonomy after the decisions of the Plenum of the Communist Party held on the islands of Brijuni in Croatia. The Minister of Internal Affairs, Serbian Aleksandër Ranković, is expelled from the state establishment.
In 1968, talks were held to amend the Yugoslav and Serbian constitution of 1963, and by the end of that year they had resulted in significant amendments.Amendment VII stated that the autonomous provinces belong to both Serbia and the Federation of Yugoslavia. With the constitutional amendments, the word “Metohi” was removed.The Constitutional Law for Kosovo approved in February 1969 started the way for Kosovo to have its own constitution. These changes came as a result of the popular demonstrations of 1968, which led to the improvement of the status of Albanians.
In 1969, the Albanian language was sanctioned by law as the second official language, alongside the Serbo-Croatian language; the use of the national flag was legalized; while in November 1969 the Assembly of Kosovo announced the law for the establishment of the University of Kosovo, which will be implemented on February 15, 1970.The Yugoslav constitution of 1974 elevated Kosovo to the element of the federation, thus creating not only a direct link with the Yugoslav community, but also elevating Kosovo to a strong legal entity. Kosovo gained powers to exercise every function of the republic, except those that were the duty of the republic of Serbia itself.
The Constitution of the Autonomous Socialist Province of Kosovo of February 27, 1974 in its article 1, defined Kosovo as a social and political community, but with a hybrid political-legal connection, when it says that Kosovo is within the Socialist Republic of Serbia and the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia. In a more favorable political climate, it was possible to extend the participation of Albanians in the bodies of administration and executive power, the Supreme Court of Kosovo, the Constitutional Court, the Prosecutor’s Office and the Social Advocate (ombudsperson of that time) were formed.
On March 23, 1989, the Constitution of Kosovo of 1974 was amended, in opposition to and violating the principles of the Yugoslav Constitution of 1974. An Assembly, with the “vote” of many members of the state secret services and in opposition to the citizens’ debate and the will theirs, declared Kosovo part of Serbia. Autonomy was suppressed.
Demonstrations and civil protests followed, which did not stop Serbia’s political establishment led by Slobodan Milosevic from adopting its new annexationist constitution on March 28 and claiming that Serbia once again became one and indivisible.
At the height of the negotiations for the reorganization of the Yugoslav Federation, on July 2, 1990, the majority of the delegates of the Assembly of Kosovo, Albanians, Turks and others, announced the Declaration of Independence of Kosovo. According to this declaration, Kosovo declared itself independent from Serbia.
Relying on the Declaration of Independence of July 2, 1990, the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo issued the new Constitution on September 7, 1990. In its article 1, it was defined that “the Republic of Kosovo is a democratic state of the Albanian Nation and members of the nations others and of national minorities, of their own citizens: Serbs, Muslims, Montenegrins, Croats, Turks, Roma and others living in Kosovo”.
Since talks were still taking place between the presidents of the Yugoslav republics and the proposals for an asymmetrical Yugoslav federation, or confederation, were being discussed, this Constitution, known as the Kaçanik Constitution, because it was approved in this town by the delegates of the Assembly under severe conditions of occupation, in the article, it said that “the Republic of Kosovo as a state is a member of the Commonwealth of Yugoslavia”.
This constitution, of the state of Kosovo, known in the world as a parallel system to the system installed by Serbia in Kosovo, stated that sovereignty in the Republic of Kosovo originates from the people and belongs to the people. The will of the people is the basis of state power. Also, the sovereignty of the people is realized through elected representatives in the bodies of state power and by referendum.
On May 15, 2001, the Special Representative of the Secretary General announced that he had signed and entered into force the Constitutional Framework for Temporary Self-Government in Kosovo, by signing Regulation no. 2001/9. This constitutional framework was the result of the powers granted to the head of UNMIK by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 of June 10, 1999.
The Framework defines Kosovo as an entity under international interim administration, which, with its own people, has unique historical, legal, cultural and linguistic attributes and an indivisible territory where interim self-governing institutions exercise their responsibilities.
In 2006, the United Nations appointed the former Finnish president, Martti Ahtisaari, to mediate in the negotiations for the settlement of the final status of Kosovo provided for in Resolution 1244. In April 2007, the Assembly, as the legislative body of the institutions of self-government, accepted a plan presented by the president Ahtisaari for the independence of Kosovo. The plan also contained key provisions for the country’s constitution.
On February 17, 2008, Kosovo was declared an independent state according to the Ahtisaari Plan. In April, the new Constitution was approved, which entered into force on June 15. Until 2016, this constitution has been amended 25 times.
The author, lawyer and former journalist, is the deputy ambassador of the Republic of Kosovo in Prague, Czech Republic. This article was published in the country’s daily press in the early 2000s. Posted here with additions.
