The Weakest Link of Kosovo's Democracy - KFOS

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Influence– lack of managerial capacity and lack of political will
Kosovo judiciary is short of staff, in particular during the process of re-evaluation of
judges and prosecutors when judges and prosecutors failed the test on ethics code,
it is expected that their number will reduce even further during other re-evaluation
phases.
Judges and prosecutors, who failed the ethics test, continued to exercise their functions
until the completion of judicial process and showed no attention in solving cases
that resulted in a judge or prosecutor, in charge of cases, having hundreds of unsolved
cases.
It was never clear why the Judicial Council kept in the same position a judge or a
prosecutor that failed re-evaluation process and was aware of the fact that he was not
going to perform the same task following the completion of re-evaluation process? This
for sure has nothing to do with improvement of their ethical and professional values.
Moreover, institutions of Kosovo failed to take concrete actions in such a situation (influence
of utterly political nature) in eliminating the gap of the number of judges and
prosecutors during and after the re-evaluation process. Not all positions for judges and
prosecutors in the country have been filled, not even now long after the process has
been completed.
Continuous preparation of candidates for judges and prosecutors has been and still remains
one of the most important issues in eliminating the big number of cases but bar
examination had not been held for more than two years and it impeded continuation
of professional enhancement of new lawyers.
Even after the completion of reappointment process, there is no way out of situation of
the increase of huge backlog of cases.
consequences
In this institutional environment, economic development is hampered and it is impossible
to guarantee legal security and Euro-Atlantic integrations.
It is impossible to believe that Kosovo can attract credible foreign investors at times
when the judicial system has more than 200.000 pending cases, in a system when
cases are not processed automatically, despite the instalment of the program for automatic
systematization of cases.
At such a stage of judiciary development, it would be impossible for every citizen of
Kosovo to trust rule of law institutions. This high level of backlog of cases bears direct
influence on reduction of legal and institutional security in Kosovo.
Judiciary remains the most anathematized institutional branch in our country 4 and as
such it is difficult to realise the concept of division of powers and mutual institutional
control.
4 Judicial Council budget is about 1% of the total of Kosovo consolidated budget.