The Weakest Link of Kosovo's Democracy - KFOS

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Nevertheless, the process of reappointment of Kosovan judges and prosecutors should
have started at the beginning of 2007. Delays in this process happened because of interferences
from local and international 6 institutions, either by acting or failing to act 7
, thus causing insecurity and big stagnation in entire sector.
Initially, the reappointment process started with a two-year delay, precisely on 13 February
2009. In the beginning, delays were caused since local institutions, in the sense
of decision making authority, had no power to seek acceleration of this process (both
this process and the judiciary were completely responsibility of UNMIK before Kosovo
was declared a sovereign state), therefore, by remaining at the discretion of the international
community, namely the First Pillar of UNMIK and the SRSG, the process had
been prolonged several times. In this period, Kosovo institutions, the Government and
the Assembly were only spectators of this process.
Following the declaration of independence, the Independent Judicial and Prosecutorial
Council assumed and still has the responsibility to carry out evaluation of performance
of Kosovan judges and prosecutors with the purpose of their re-appointment. The IJPC
is managed by internationals and is funded by a donation provided by the European
Union and the USA State Department.
This process was foreseen to go through four stages and may last from 18 to 24
months.
This process, which started in February 2009, was accompanied by great lack of transparency
and inappropriate technical preparations (most of judges and prosecutors
had failed the initial test, the ethical one, due to the fact that for most of them testing
was impossible to be conducted in time and in suitable technical circumstances).
The manner of organizing this test was not in compliance with traditions of legal work
and studies in Kosovo, a situation which had lasted for decades. It was impossible for
judges and prosecutors to adapt to this manner because some of them were fairly old
to be so agile and succeed in completing all the testing of the first stage on time, the
one on code of ethics.
Reasons behind the dragging on of this process are different, both professional and
pertaining to political influences.
Initially, the Kosovo Judicial Council and the Independent Judicial and Prosecutorial
Council were unable to harmonize their stands in relation to proposals made. As a
consequence of this obstruction, the reappointment of some judges and prosecutor,
despite being planned to take place in December 2009, was postponed without any
official justification, which involved the President of the Republic of Kosovo too, who
would appoint the first judges and prosecutors as a result of this process. After such
a delay, since this delay was publicly talked about and discussed in printed media and
due to public pressure, first staff was appointed by the President of the Republic in the
beginning of 2010.
6 Donors of this process are the European Commission and the Justice Department of
the USA.
7 Local institutions failed to show constructive and useful role in proper conduct of this
process, apart from causing delays in approving recommendations for judges and prosecutors in
December 2009.