The sector that includes justice institutions, the most important for the functioning of the state, is the one that has had the most stagnation. The 10th anniversary of independence finds prosecutors, courts and police more problems, while the main challenge continues to be the fight against corruption, especially at high levels. But what has happened in these years, since the declaration of independence, in the justice system in Kosovo?
At the beginning of February 2008, the European Union made an important decision, reports KTV.
UNMIK's rule of law responsibilities in Kosovo would be transferred to another mission, EULEX.
The EU for the first time was involved in such an international mission, the largest and most expensive ever in its history.
The impunity of war crimes, corruption and organized crime, which called into question the future of a new state, was thought to be put to an end with a new international mission.
After months of postponements, with the Kosovar terrain, finally on December 9, 2008, 1400 members of EULEX were announced.
Before starting to engage in field work, the mission had to do its homework: in the first 6 months, EULEX only supervised the work of courts, prosecutors, police and customs. And the first reports highlighted the inability of the police to deal with organized crime and the danger posed to judges by political and criminal pressures.
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Justice, big failure
Upon starting the work, the public debate was dominated for months by a police cooperation agreement, which this mission had signed with Belgrade.
Not only this, over the years the European mission for the rule of law was in the center of attention, and many criticized it for never being able to fight crime and corruption, for which it came to Kosovo.
Its own officials were involved in such acts, there were at least two cases when prosecutors and judges within the mission publicly pointed out the shortcomings of EULEX.
Kosovo started the year 2009 with the establishment of the Constitutional Court of Kosovo, whose first judges were voted in by the Assembly of Kosovo in May of that year.
The court was supposed to have nine members: four Albanians, one from the Serbian minority, one from other communities and three others international.
Enver Hasani became its first chairman, coming from another high position, that of the rector of the University of Pristina.
In the same year, 2009, two high-ranking officials of the KLA, "Llapi Group", were accused of war crimes, until finally Rrustem Mustafa and Latif Gashi were found guilty.
At the end of 2009, accusations and counter-accusations were being made in the floor of the Assembly of Kosovo for political murders.
Gani Geci and Adem Salihaj, former deputies of the LDD, called the Democratic Party of Kosovo, which was led by Hashim Thaçi, at that time the prime minister, the address of crime in the country and for this they said they had evidence.
Three days after this session, the Kosovar public saw the face of the former agent of the Kosovo Intelligence Service.
A few meters away from the Government Assembly of Kosovo, Nazim Bllaca, at the end of November 2009, had gone public and talked about post-war murders and other crimes. Bllaca had admitted that he himself had killed a person, and had been an accomplice in a total of 17 murders. He had also mentioned the names of his superiors in SHIK, senior figures of KLA and PDK.
3 court proceedings were initiated by this testimony and others are still in process.
The action of EULEX, the raids on the Ministry of Transport and the house of Fatmir Limaj, started 2010, until the European mission accused him of corruption, related to rigging tenders for roads.
In the end, Fatmir Limaj and all the others were declared innocent of these charges. Similarly, for war crimes, the Court acquitted Limaj in the "Kleçka" case.
The month of July had brought a series of events in the justice sector.
Suddenly, the Hague Court turned the case against Ramush Haradinaj, Idriz Balaj and Lahi Brahimaj into a partial retrial on July 21.
2010 - On July 22, 2010, the opinion of the International Court of Justice was being celebrated in Kosovo, in which it was said that the declaration of Kosovo's independence was not contrary to international laws. And on July 23, another sensational arrest was made in the capital, reports KTV. Exactly from this facility, on July 23, 2010, with handcuffs but smiling, the Governor of the Central Bank of Kosovo, Hashim Rexhepi, came out.
2011 - The year 2011 did not start in the best way.
On January 25, 169 votes for and 8 against, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe approved Dick Marty's report on alleged crimes committed by KLA members.
From this report, the Special Court was created for Kosovo, which continues to wait for the first indictments.
2012 – The case of the main man of the Anti-Corruption Task Force in Kosovo was seen as a scandal. Nazmi Mustafi was accused and found guilty of abuse of office.
Xhabir Zharku, mayor of Kaçanik Municipality, was sentenced to three years in prison for two criminal offenses, coercion and illegal possession of a weapon.
But he did not spend a single day in prison, having fled to the state of Sweden before being sent to prison, from where he has never returned.
Besides him, many mayors were involved in accusations and trials, and the former mayor of Prizren, Ramadan Muja, is still facing justice.
2013 – EULEX was put under pressure in 2013. Although over 200 judgments were given in cases of corruption, organized crime and human trafficking, the prosecution of cases involving war crimes and the accused were KLA commanders and soldiers , had evoked many reactions. In this year, the indictments in cases of war crimes, in response received protests and requests for the mission's departure from Kosovo.
The former general commander, Sylejman Selimi, the one for the Drenica region, Sami Lushtaku, and more than 15 others were included in the indictment of EULEX, for war crimes.
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14 years of state - incomplete, challenged internally and externally
Mass protests followed.
Lushtaku, who was sworn in as the head of Skenderaj from detention, was declared innocent, but in this case, the former general commander of the KLA, Sylejman Selimi, was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
2014 - Not even MPs escaped justice, among them the scandalous case of MP Ukë Rugova, who was involved in the Italian visa scandal.
The former commander of the general staff, Azem Syla, appeared before the court as a suspect for organized crime, together with a group of 38 people, which the Prosecution claims he led. He resigned from the position of deputy of PDK in the Assembly, after being arrested by the Police.
However, corruption cases remained secondary at least for a period. The increase in the number of Kosovo citizens joining the conflict in Syria eventually alarmed the country's authorities, who began an active campaign in the fight against terrorism. Participants in the conflict in Syria, imams and people who had tried to go there were handcuffed.
2015 – Aleksandër Lumezi, in February 2015, became the Chief State Prosecutor, with the commitment to fight against corruption and organized crime.
On the other hand, the judges had gone on strike for more than 20 days, demanding salary increases and security allowances * 10.03
But, away from the big topics, the justice institutions in the country received low blows in a small municipality like Fushë Kosova.
The former director of the PTK, Leme Xhema, had returned after her sentence had been prescribed and under the sound of trumpets and drums, she was asking for votes as a candidate of a party in Medvegja.
2016 - No one had guaranteed security in Kosovo, regardless of their position or function. Many individuals had come to such a conclusion, since the house of the Chief State Prosecutor, Aleksandër Lumezi, became the target of robberies in November 2016, although it was guarded by the Kosovo Police for 24 hours.
Enver Sekiraqa was sentenced to 37 years in prison by the Basic Court of Pristina on the charge of inciting the murder of the policeman Triumf Riza.
MPs, ministers, former ministers, party leaders and high officials were facing justice in 2016. However, the citizens did not have the impression that the courts and prosecutors were doing their work in the best way. They were largely dissatisfied with the work of these two institutions, reports KTV. The cases related to corruption were given priority, other cases were left in the second order, which accumulated during the year had reached alarming numbers.
2017 - 4 activists of the Vetëvendosje Movement were sentenced to over 20 years in prison under charges of terrorism, related to the attack on the Kosovo Assembly building in 2015.
The case of the activist Astrit Dehari, who was found dead in the Detention Center in Prizren, continued to be investigated, now by an Institute in Switzerland.
The former president of the Constitutional Court and the former rector of the University of Prishtina, Enver Hasani, was sentenced to 1 and a half years of suspended prison for abuse of office.
Hasani, after the sentence, raised allegations that the chief state prosecutor, Aleksandër Lumezi, had falsified the jurisprudence exam.
The KTV investigated the case for months, bringing numerous arguments that questioned his examination, but the prosecution needed a few days of investigation to close the investigation and to establish that Lumezi's file was in accordance with the provisions and procedures for jurisprudence at the time.
Lumezi's name was linked to the Democratic Party of Kosovo, in the intercepts that were published at the end of 2017 on KTV.
The chief prosecutor remained unmoved, who continued his work and returned to the commission for Jurisprudence, to evaluate the candidates who were subject to the exam contested by him.
One event of 2017 was the start of the implementation of the Justice Agreement, but another late-year development overshadowed the others.
In 2017, the Special Court managed to fully complete the legal infrastructure necessary to function. Eventually, someone in Kosovo regretted supporting the creation of the court, and began preparing the ground to oppose it. Regarding the amendment of the Law on the Court, the organizations that came out of the KLA war had started collecting signatures on the petition, which turned out to have another purpose: repealing the law on the Special Court, as an attempt to stop its work.
The initiative failed and it took tremendous international pressure for the country's leaders to declare their withdrawal from such a goal in 2018.
The year 2018 started with the punishment of the deputies of the Vetëvendosje Movement, for the tear gas in the Assembly of Kosovo.
A number of MPs from this party, but also from other parties, now ministers, will face justice this year with such accusations.
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EULEX presents the judicial monitoring report
Also, a large number of trials are taking place in the country's courts for corruption and organized crime.
This year, local prosecutors and judges are expected to be without their colleagues from the EULEX mission, whose mandate expires in mid-June. However, Kosovars continue to remain dissatisfied with the justice system. In the country, voices have been added at the beginning of the Vetting process. More than ever, the state, after the first decade of independence, needs court prosecutors with integrity, professionalism and independence, away from the influence of politics and crime.
