Constitutional Protection of the Head of State: The Case of Kosovo

This paper clarifies the role and position of the Head of State from a comparative perspective, as well as the protection of that institution from an extra constitutional dismissal via constitutional amendment. Its starting point was the exercise by the Constitutional Court of Kosovo of abstract preventive control of eleven (11) proposed constitutional amendments. The Court declared unconstitutional over sixty (60) per cent of them, including amendment ten (10), the major subject of this paper. In this case, the Court made it clear that the early termination of the mandate of the Head of State undertaken through the enactment of a new constitutional amendment was unconstitutional. Ultimately, the paper demonstrates that no serious and professional court would ever take into account arguments ad hominem in cases dealing with abstract review of constitutionality of laws and constitutional amendments.