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In Kosovo, civil society organizations are calling for a justice system verification process, similar to what has been implemented in Albania, to clean up this system from what political influence and various interest groups, as they say. While the officials say that the verification of judges and prosecutors should happen every day through internal mechanisms and this would improve the justice system continuously.
They say that have created a strong legal framework to strengthen the fight against organized crime and corruption. But on the other hand critics talk of shortcomings in the fight of these phenomena, especially in the high-level cases that, according to them, are the result of political influences.Justice Minister Abelard Tahiri says 2018 was very important in the area of rule of law because during this period, 23 draft laws related to the strengthening of the fight against organized crime and corruption were sent to parliament, VOA reports.
"Of what has happened is a kind of a deep reform in the Criminal Code, is increased the sentence for corruption ... we have adopted a new law on the confiscation of illegal property, preventing the conflict of interest that will save the budget of state of Kosovo millions of euros because affects over 83,000 civil servants of the Republic of Kosovo. "
Minister Tahiri says that 2019 should be an important period of the crackdown of criminal groups, corrupt affairs and all those involved in the misuse of public money. The sentences for these acts according to him have increased considerably.
But a study by the Kosovo Justice Institute points out that no senior official has been convicted in the last three years with a final verdict on corruption offenses. The head of this Institute, Betim Musliu, says that all the Kosovo political class and the interest groups that have political power have created immunity.
"... the recruitment process, especially in key positions, is a process that has made the Justice System unviable, through which illegal activities are conducted without judging...by creating amnesty for those who are the violators of law in various fields, especially senior officials. "
Mr. Musliu says that in order to remove the political influence should begin a process of deep verifications of personalities in the justice system, based on three pillars: in justification of property, image clearance and professional assessment.
"It is seen that the human factor is causing these failures in the justice system, so the human factor must be verified once again, based on the vetting process, which will clear all figures who exercise public functions in the Police, Prosecution and Judges. "
During 2017, 16 judges have been assigned to the Disciplinary Commission and 8 of them have been penalized of violation of the Code of Ethics or any misconduct.
Kosovo Judicial Council Chairman Nehat Idrizi says the verification of judges should happen every day, while not expelling the possibility of any judges being influenced by politics or groups of interest, but according to him these are isolated cases.
"If we do the vetting, this will have an impact on postponement of hearings and trials, for years. Today, the number of cases is huge, there are a large number of people waiting for trial, so the vetting process would take too long".