Ombudsman Report Not Adopted for Quorum Lack

The Kosovo Assembly has reviewed its annual Ombudsperson report for 2016, to which there was criticism, but also praise for the work of this institution. In the end, however, the report was not put to the polls, due to lack of quorum.

Ombudsman Hilmi Jashar, during the report's presentation, said the institution he heads has marked raises in the establishment of recommendations for the country's institutions.

“Under the mandate and competencies of this institution has been released over 173 recommendations to Kosovo's various public institutions, which constitute a 203 per cent increase compared to the previous year, and which is that every second day we have had a recommendation addressed Kosovo institutions. On the part of the ombudsman there has been a 100 per cent rise in the ex-oficio investigation, or on the basis of self-initiation addressing systematic human rights violations in Kosovo”, Jashar said.

However, Jashar stressed that the large number of court decisions that have not been executed continue to be disturbing.

“As far as judicial system is concerned, we continue to have procrastination of judicial processes. And we recently have reached the average deadline for judicial deployment of 8.54 years in cases that citizens have set before this system. Also, estimates have been made about the failure to execute judicial decisions, as well as disturbing that during 2016 there are over 60 thousand acts that have remained unmet or executed. In addition to the disturbing fact of failing to implement the full-powered form judgments, they also bring an economic damage to the country, where over 2m euros do direct damage to the country's citizens”, Jashar said.

Former People's Avocacy, now Vetvendosje Movement MP Sami Kurteshi, said citizens continue not to trust the judiciary, precisely for the reasons noted in the Ombudsman's report, not to execute judicial decisions.

“Citizens continue to have a distrust of the judicial system due to numerous procrastinations in the introduction of cases for years, as the ombudsman mentioned. Or if not to implement all-powerful judicial decisions, inefficient decisions, prescribing judicial subjects or multiple errors that even the failure of judges to target procedures and decision-making. This phenomenon is not completely unknown in Kosovo's experience. By the end of 2016, over 417 thousand substances remain unresolved from the judiciary, Kurteshi said.

LDK MP FreedomKatazi praised the efficiency of the ombudsman institution, but according to it, much remains to be done.

The second percentage of recommendations is about the efficiency of this institution. Above all, the rest of the ex-oficio subjects talk about such efficiency. But above all that needs to be mentioned is increasing the application of recommendations, but very much to be desired by”, Cateazi said.

PDK MP Ganimete Musliu said the ombudsman is the mechanism of equality, promotion, monitoring and supporting equal treatment without discrimination on grounds protected by law.

Musliu has asked the head of the ombudsman to know if he has taken any action after reporting on human rights violations in the case of “Drenica”.

“A he and the institution he runs any action after numerous media reports of legal violations and insults that occurred in the Drenica case? Because we are already witnesses and nothing is left unrecognizable, at least from broad opinion and media reporting, because the Drenica case will be brought into history and will leave a mark as the most unprecedented case of injustice in Kosovo, but now not only in Kosovo. This will remain as a poor trace, both of the tour and of international justice given that this issue has been and remains in the hands of international justice in this case of the EULEX mission in Kosovo”, she stressed.

Continued hearing did not become known when it will continue, as it was interrupted due to lack of quorum.