Category: News and Events

Few corruption-related court cases in Kosovo end with a prison sentence, BIRN Kosovo and Internews Kosova’s annual court monitoring report for 2017, presented on Tuesday, said.

Since the first such report, 12 years ago, the project has monitored over 10,000 court sessions, revealing important evidence of violations and failings within the judiciary in Kosovo.

Introducing the report, Labinot Leposhtica, from BIRN’s legal office in Kosovo, noted that only 32 of 254 court verdicts on corruption in 2017 resulted in prison sentences.

In most cases, those found guilty received conditional prison sentences or fines, Leposhtica added.

The report outlined numerous instances of light sentences – and of seriously prolonged corruption-related court cases.

Leposhtica also drew attention to procedural violations by judges, prosecutors and lawyers, which were witnessed during the monitoring.

The report was presented at a panel discussion on Tuesday, when the panelists discussed the main findings – including that few corruption cases in Kosovo end in prison sentences.

Jeta Xharra, BIRN Kosovo director, said that the past 12 years of court monitoring had revealed both progress and cause for disappointment.

She mentioned one notorious case, of Xhabir Zharku, former mayor of Kacanik, who after being convicted in Kosovo simply left the country and did not serve his prison sentence.

“The person you refer to is Kosovo’s shame, but such cases will not discourage us from supporting the judiciary. Such cases should not happen again,” Kosovo’s Minister of Justice, Abelard Tahiri, said, responding to Xharra’s words.

Tahiri said he saw BIRN as a welcome partner in his own work in the justice system.

The head of the Kosovo Supreme Court, Enver Peci, said judges and prosecutors had become more disciplined as a result of BIRN’s monitoring work over the past 12 years.

He said it was good that “the courts are not afraid of BIRN any longer; before, people were like, ‘Run! The BIRN people are here’ … whereas now we’ve become more disciplined because of you,” Peci said.

Hasan Shala, head of the Court of Appeals, talked about some of the worst flaws in the judiciary. “There are secret compromises between judges and prosecutors,” he admitted.

But he also mentioned achievements. “There were 160 cases related to corruption in 2017, 145 of which were closed during the year, so only 15 were left to be finished in 2018,” Shala noted.

Nehat Idrizi, head of the Kosovo Judicial Council, agreed with the findings of the report but said they were working hard on evaluating judges who since last year had been assessed by a professional commission.

“Last year, we started evaluating the judges’ performances; 66 judges have been evaluated, most of them have received a positive assessment, and only two or three were negative and had to undergo further training,” he said.

Idrizi said the low number of judges was a challenge when the number of unfinished court cases remained significant.

He also highlighted the lack of supporting staff for judges, arguing that they had an insufficient number of personal aides.

The roundtable at the Palace of Justice in Pristina was intended to look again at suggestions made by civil society organisations about amendments to the laws on inheritance in Kosovo, which are seen as unfavourable to women.

Key speakers at the discussion included Lisa Magno, Acting Mission Director at USAID, MP Korab Sejdiu and Altin Ademi, advisor and chief of office to the Minister of Justice.

“USAID offers its full support on debate, discussion and passion about this issue,” said Magno.

She said it was very important that the package of laws should be moved forward.

“Without action, there will be no change,” she added.

MP Sejdiu affirmed that he and his colleagues stood ready to help and cooperate in order to improve the current situation of women in terms of inheritance, emphasising that the main issue is Kosovo society’s mentality about women’s roles.

“If, since they were in the womb, women have been at a disadvantage to men, this disadvantage will continue to follow them,” he said.

After remarks from the key speakers, the floor was opened up to a series of panellists – Nehat Idrizi, president of Kosovo Judicial Council, Enver Peci, president of the Supreme Court, Brian Kemple of the USAID Property Rights Programme, Hasan Shala, president of the Court of Appeals, Aferdita Bytyqi, president of the Basic Court in Pristina and Isa Kelmendi, a judge at the Supreme Court.

Addressing the issue of delayed inheritance, Kemple called for more activism and solidarity in society to help women by working on the recognition and implementation of their rights to inheritance.

Bytyqi called for the issue from men to be taken more seriously by men in Kosovo society.

“I call on those men who have an impact [on society], to seriously fight for this matter,” she said.

After the panel, the roundtable continued with an open discussion including prosecutors, lawyers, judges, parliament members, ministries, and civil society representatives.

The event ended with a request from MP Sejdiu to send any concrete suggestions about laws on inheritance to him, promising to try to push them forward together with his colleagues.

The moderators of the roundtable discussion, Kreshnik Gashi, editor and director of the TV programme ‘Justice in Kosovo’, and Labinot Leposhtica from the legal office of BIRN Kosovo, responded that these suggestions have been ready for a long time already and will be sent to Sejdiu.

The documentary, directed by Aleksandar Reljic, looks at the possibility of coexistence between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo.

In 2017, a Serbian far-right group called Zavetnici attempted to stop a screening of the film in Novi Sad, but the coordinators and the police prevented them.

The documentary originated from project ‘Real People – Real Solutions’, which addresses relations between Kosovo and Serbia from the perspectives of history, everyday life, and the future.

The project is a cooperation between the Association of Independent Journalists of Vojvodina, BIRN Kosovo and ZFD Forum Belgrade, with the support of the EU delegation in Serbia.

Four other movies have been shot as part of the same project.

The Serbian Contemporary Short and Documentary Film Festival is staged by the Orfelin Circle (Krug Orfelin) organisation.

At the conference, the panellists talked about human rights and the Ombudsperson’s role, then participants had the opportunity to discuss the topic with experts who are directly or indirectly involved in dealing with human rights.

The panellists were Gerrie Willems, the Netherlands’ ambassador to Kosovo, Mehdi Geci, a representative of the Ombudsperson, Tatjana Lazarevic, editor of the KoSSev news website and Ljubisa Bascarevic, a human rights activist.

Ambassador Williams said that the objective of the project is to raise public awareness and encourage people to report relevant information to the Ombudsperson.

Ombudsperson’s representative Geci said only two per cent of all citizens’ reports to the Kosovo Ombudsperson come from Serb cizens in the north, and they are mostly related to the usurpation of property and prolongation of judicial cases.

Lazarevic from KoSSev claimed meanwhile that human rights are being violated on a daily basis in Kosovo.