Special Court or UN Court?

The proposal of 43 Kosovo Parliament deputies for the abolition of Specialised Chambers and the Specialised Prosecutor's Office, known as the Special Court for War Crimes in Kosovo, could further complicate the situation in the country, assess international criminal cases experts and connoisseurs of political developments.

MPs from the ruling and opposition parties have stressed that the request to abolish the Special Court remains in the Assembly and expect it to be prosecuted.

International Criminal Law Professor Ismet Salihu says that even if the proposal is processed in the Assembly, abolishing the law could face many problems. Initially, according to him, measures are required for constitutional changes, which have enabled the establishment of the Special Court. At this point, two-thirds of the votes by the Parliament's deputies are needed, as well as two-thirds of the votes of MPs representing minority communities.

“Also, it should be revoted, the international agreement linked between Kosovo President then, Atifete Jahjaga and Holland's ambassador, with whom it is decided that the seat of this court will be in The Hague in the Netherlands. This is a very complicated issue in the international criminal judiciary, because this is the international court. It is the Kosovo court, but it is also the international court”.

Professor Salihu added that even if the votes needed for abolishing the Law for the Special Court could be reached, international justice possesses alternative variants, which, according to him, can politically be even more harmful to Kosovo.

Even with the assumption that the Special Court Law can be abolished, then, as internationals have said in 2015, that unless Kosovo establishes this court, it will be founded by the United Nations Security Council. So in this option, the international community will surely use this option to be founded by the Security Council. That would have been an even worse option, more negative and with more serious consequences for Kosovo”.

Similar thoughts exist in the knowledge of political developments, Ilir Ibrahim. Speaking of Radio Free Europe, he says in 2015 Kosovo has had two options: The Special Court, as it is today, adopted by the laws of Kosovo or a court founded at the UN Security Council.

According to him, neither today, Kosovo has any other political situation, where it could choose to make a local court that would deal with alleged crimes.

We still remain in what the international community requested in 2015. I think that if you move forward with such an attempt, which we have seen, of the Kosovo political class, then we will end up with a Security Council court, but with a large negative. Then we will also lose the help and support of international friends, including the United States, which has a huge impact on the Security Council. Then, we cannot imagine what court there will be at the UN, which will judge the alleged crimes in Kosovo”.

Analyst Ibrahimi suggests that the actions of much of Kosovo's leadership and political class over the issue of the Special Court are reckless.

“I think this is a political amateurism, which we are seeing in the political class, which is not well thought of, which is Kosovo's major interest. But it seems to me that personal and individual interests are being viewed to overcome a political challenge, which they may even have by putting Kosovo's interest ahead of their”.

On December 22, 2017, two attempts for extraordinary sessions in the Assembly have failed to vote for the proposal of 43 deputies for the abolition of the Law for the Special Court. Regarding the proposal for the abolition of the Special Court, there have been harsh reactions from ambassadors of the Quint countries in Kosovo.

Kosovo Assembly MPs are currently on leave until last week of January.