Pristina, November 1 2019 – Kosovo Law Institute (KLI) reacts to the irresponsibility and negligence of institutions of the Republic of Kosovo, towards fulfilling the state obligations in taking measures in relagarding the Judgment of the European Court for the Human Rights (ECHR) in the case Grudic vs Serbia. As a result of lack of political will and negligence in providing state support to realize pension right of citizens of the Republic of Kosovo from Serbia Pension and Invalidity Insurance (SPDIF), with tens of thousands of Kosovo citizens, today are arbitrarily deprived to realize the right to benefit their pensions for which they had contributed for years and decades.
European Court for the Human Rights in the case Grudic against Serbia had found that there is a violation of the property right of pensioners, within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention for Human Rights and on the basis of practice of the ECHR according to which pensions represent property. Judgment of the ECHR in the case Grudic against Serbia, of 2012, had obliged Serbia to compensate in the same way, according to abovementioned judgment, contribution-paying pensions, work invalidity pensions and family pensions, for citizens of Kosovo, who had contributed in the pension fund until 1999, when they are arbitrary terminated by Serbia.
Regarding this, Committee of Ministers of the European Council through its mechanisms had implemented supervision of implementation of the ECHR’s Judgment regarding the fulfillment of obligations by Serbia and realization of the right of pensioners from Kosovo. While, Serbia through its institutions had sent nine (9) opinions to the Committee of Ministers regarding efforts and actions taken in the implementation of the ECHR’s judgment, Kosovo did not take any initiative and did not send even one (1) opinion to the Committee of Ministers. As a result of negligence and irresponsibility of Kosovo, Serbia constantly has provided reasons to evade the implementation of this Judgment despite the liability for respecting European Convention for the Human Rights.
Seeing the lack of institutional response, the only institution in Kosovo that had made continuous efforts related to awareness of this issue was the Ombudsperson, who also publicly demanded from the responsible institutions to fulfill their state and legal obligations for the citizens of the Republic of Kosovo, and unfortunately no one cared about this.
Finally, institution of the Ombudsperson, considering that institutions of the Republic of Kosovo have not raised this issue on the instances, through which would require the implementation of ECHR’s Judgment and, hence, for all other cases of this nature, the same had sent an opinion, based on the Rule of Committee of Ministers of the European Council, that has to do with the supervision of execution of Judgments, as well as proposing concrete measures to fulfill obligations by Serbia.
Contrary to the recommendations of the Ombudsperson and constant request that the state through its mechanisms to seek protection of interests of the citizens of Kosovo, and contrary to the own requirements of the Committee of Ministers of the European Council, which had requested by Serbia to fulfillment and implementation of the ECHR, the previous governments, had requested that the closed topic through ECHR’s judgment be placed on the list of topics that should be discussed in Brussels between the delegations of Serbia and Kosovo.