Pristina, 6th December 2016 Kosovo Law Institute (KLI) within the “Week against corruption” held roundtable titled: “Supervising the implementation of legislation and policies in fighting corruption”.
On this roundtable was published preliminary report of monitoring corruption cases in prosecutorial and juridical system, which is referred to three month period July, August, and September 2016.
“Week against corruption” is joint activity of Kosovo Law Institute (KLI), Cohu, Democracy Plus (D+) Group for political and legal studies (GPLS), GAP Institute and Kosovo Democratic Institute (KDI), with the support of American embassy in Kosovo.
Part of panel of this roundtable were D/ambassador of American embassy in Pristina, Ms. Colleen Hyland, Head of juridical council, Mr. Nehat Idrizi, Special prosecutorial Chief of Republic of Kosovo, Mr. Reshat Millaku, and high researcher of Kosovo Law Institute Mr. Ehat Miftaraj.
On her opening speech, D/American ambassador, Ms. Colleen Hyland mentioned the support that this embassy has given continuously to all efforts for fighting corruption in Kosovo.
According to her, civil society plays a very important role in fighting corruption, especially giving recommendations on that what should be improved. Talking about the role of civil society, she encouraged work of Kosovo Law Institute, at monitoring the corruption cases in prosecutorial and juridical system. During this roundtable, D/American ambassador has spoken also for the work of judiciary and prosecutor, saying that now the public has lost the trust in these two systems.
Surveys of citizens of Republic of Kosovo show that they do not believe in justice, corruption investigations are lasting long, and indictments for corruption are never finished with penalties said Hyland. The Head of juridical council of Kosovo, Mr. Nehat Idrizi has congratulated work of Kosovo Law Institute, for published report, saying that all presented recommendations in the report, will be analyzed from the KJK side and will make effort to place them on implementation.
Head of KJK during his opening speech, talked about action plan for fighting corruption, to which through him results started to accessed. Vital for us is fight against crime and corruption and for that on February of this year we redacted action plan for fighting corruption, where we thank once again KLI for assisting us in this way. By this plan we took to appear weaknesses in the treatment case of corruption and since the beginning of implementation of this plan, they began to show results.
According to prosecution of high profile persons in Kosovo, Mr. Idrizi said that there are no persons of this level as public expects, but if prosecutors have on duty persons with high profile, then judges court will treat this cases with priority.
Meanwhile Chief Prosecutor of Special Prosecution in Republic of Kosovo, Mr. Reshat Millaku, presented in front of panelists and participants of roundtable, work that is done until now by this prosecution. According to him it is not true that the prosecution is corrupted nor controlled by state. I see that some Media are spreading information that prosecutors are raising indictments with no excuses and on political grounds but that do not exist. All talk about corruption, have spread to population that this place is corrupted, but perceptions are not facts. According to the Chief of this Prosecutor, the prosecution is pursuing even high profiles and should have always in mind the low number of prosecutors and large number of cases.
After the opening speech of panelists, High lawful researcher of Kosovo Law Institute, Mr. Ehat Miftaraj, has presented in front of participants the preliminary report of KLI, titled Treatment Trends in Corruption Cases – Monitoring report of treatment of corruption cases in justice system. On this periodic report, the monitors of this institution have shown the findings of monitoring process in the prosecutorial and court system, which refers to the three month period July, August, September 2016.
Participants on this meeting were Heads of Basic Courts, Chief prosecutors of Basic Prosecutions, judges, prosecutors, and representative of American embassy, representative of Kosovo Prosecutorial Council, Kosovo Juridical Council, and representative of civil society.
About specific findings of KLI draft report, find attached fully preliminary report, meanwhile after the comments and discussion held during the roundtable, KLI in the upcoming days will publish fully report. Also find attached photos realized at the event.