October 14 (SeeNews) - Kosovo Serb party, Serb List, had filed a complaint against a recently adopted law for putting indebted zinc and lead mining and smelting complex Trepca under government control, claiming the new legislation violates the constitution, Kosovo's Constitutional Court said.
Under the law adopted by parliament last week, Kosovo's government will take control over 80% of the shares of Trepca. Opposition Socialist party Vetevendosje, Kosovo Serb members of government, ethnic Serb miners at Trepca and the government of Serbia all opposed the new law. Ethnic Serb miners in northern Kosovo blocked roads in protest for two days, according to local media reports.
Serb List submitted their complaint against the law on Thursday, Jasmina Zivkovic, a member of parliament from the party, told SeeNews by e-mail.
The party claims that the law, adopted in a 79-0 vote with 14 abstentions in the 120-seat parliament, is in breach of several articles of the constitution, which relate to the rights of the smaller ethnic communities in Kosovo, Zivkovic said. Serb List boycotted the vote.
Serb List believes that the law is of vital importance for Kosovo and its Serb minority. According to Kosovo's constitution, support from majority of the MPs representing smaller ethnic communities is needed for laws of vital importance to be adopted.
The Constitutional Court has 60 days to rule on the complaint, a court official told SeeNews on Friday.
The Serb List, the representative political group of the Serb community in Kosovo, has two government ministers, one in charge of administration and local self-government and the other one in charge of communities and returns. The party also has a deputy prime minister without portfolio.
The bill can be signed into law by Kosovo's president only after the court rules that it doesn't violate the constitution.
If the law doesn't enter into force, the smelting and mining complex will have to be liquidated next month and its assets sold to repay debt.
Currently the mines and the smelter are under the administrations of Kosovo's privatisation agency, which was created by the United Nations.
Serbia does not recognize Kosovo's independence and claims ownership of Trepca as an asset of the former Yugoslavia. Kosovo, an autonomous province within the former Yugoslavia, declared independence in 2008. To date, 109 out of 193 UN member states and 23 out of 28 EU member countries have recognised Kosovo.
In its heyday in the 1970s, the mining and smelting complex employed more than 20,000. Today, it employs just 2,400.
The complex included forty mines and factories, located mostly in Kosovo, but also in Serbia and Montenegro. Most of them were closed in the late 1980s and 1990s and now the complex comprises seven lead and zinc mines, three concentrators, one smelter, and one zinc plant.