Talat Xhaferi acknowledged that he made a mistake during the final session of the Parliament, when he declared an ancillary law on state prosecutors as accepted without putting it through two votes. Still, Xhaferi insisted before the press that the law can be considered valid because the Badinter rule shouldn’t have applied.

Xhaferi clearly told the Parliament that the law on the Council of prosecutors will have to be adopted under the rule that requires an additional vote by the members of Parliament who are ethnic minorities, and requires a majority of their votes, but then did not hold the second vote. The law, which is crucial for the previous PPO law on state prosecutors to work, includes concessions the ruling SDSM party made to ethnic Albanian parties over the use of the Albanian language in the judiciary, and as such had to be adopted with the Badinter rule, but Xhaferi today claimed that the second vote wasn’t necessary.

We voted on two other laws with the Badinter rule and I told the Parliament to prepare for a Badinter vote but then I realized I made a mistake. The law was adopted without the Badinter vote and that is acceptable. I made a mistake, but it’s not the end of the world, Xhaferi said.

He went on to claim that the PPO law was also adopted legitimately, despite the clear violation of procedures. Xhaferi ordered a vote on this law, that requires 81 votes, but got only 74. Under pressure from the ruling SDSM party, Xhaferi ordered a second vote and then declared the law adopted with only 80 votes.