Constitutional Court of Albania has decided Tuesday that President of the Republic, Ilir Meta, was right to refuse decreeing Gent Cakaj, now not in this position anymore, as Acting Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs.

In its ruling, the Constitutional Court decided that the President has full constitutional power, just like the Parliament and the Prime Minister to appoint ministers, as it published the final interpretation of Article 98 of the Constitution on the appointment of ministers.

Apart from the interpretation of Article 98, Prime Minister Rama had requested from the CC the resolution of the dispute of competencies between the Prime Minister of the Republic of Albania and the President of the Republic of Albania, which was rejected.

However, President Meta rejected the appointment of Gent Cakaj as Foreign Minister, as the latter was not provided with a security certificate according to the legal criteria.

On its part, the certificate issued by the CISD, an institution under the Prime Minister, only one day after the application was made in violation of the law. Within a day, the CISD issued a top-level security certificate for acquaintance with classified information of the Albanian state, NATO and the EU, with a validity of five years.

Thus, the certificate was issued without a proper verification process according to the conditions, obligations, criteria and procedure provided in the legal acts.

According to the Court, the appointment of the Minister should guarantee the fulfillment of the criteria for that function, while the verification of the criteria should be done by the three bodies (the Assembly, the Prime Minister and the President) according to the competencies.