17 minutes agoJustice Minister Kosovo seems on track, says Vetting is not needed
Periskopi(7 years ago)
(7 years ago)In Kosovo, authorities say they have established a powerful legal framework for strengthening against organised crime and corruption, but critics speak of shortcomings in the fight against these phenomena and especially in high-level cases, which they say is the result of political influences. Justice Minister Abelard Tahiri says 2018 [...]
Justice Minister Abelard Tahiri says the year 2018 was very important for the area of rule of law because, along it, about 23 bills linking to strengthening the fight against organised crime and corruption have been submitted to the Parliament for approval.
What happens is a deep reform of the Penal Code. There have been increased penalties for corruption, the pre-prescription of acts of crime has been extended. While on the other hand we have also adopted a new law on confiscating illegal property, we have also adopted the law to prevent conflict of interest and that will save Kosovo's budget tens of millions of euros”, Tahiri has indicated for VOA.
Minister Tahiri says 2019 should be a period of powerful crackdown on criminal groups, corrupt relatives and all those involved in misuse of public money.
Punishments for his actions have increased significantly.
A study by the Kosovo Institute for Justice points out that no senior official has been sentenced in the last three years with the final conviction of criminal acts of corruption.
Otherwise civil society organisations are calling for a process of verifying the justice system, similar to what has been implemented in Albania, to clear this system of things from what the political impact and various interest groups say.
Institution officials say the verification of judges and prosecutors should occur daily through internal mechanisms and thus constantly improve the justice system.
Justice Minister Abelard Tahiri says Kosovo needs to increase the accountability and responsibility of judges and prosecutors rather than their verification over long periods.
A process of vetoing us has gone through 2009-10 at the time of the reappointed of judges and prosecutors from UNMIK to the institutions of the independent state of Kosovo. So in that period we've had a reappointed judge and it's happened exactly so self-surfying and it's been about 35 percent of judges and prosecutors are left out of the system. We need mechanisms that we have not had within the system that address this issue and that increase the efficiency of the judiciary once in 10 or 15 years of such processes, Tahiri said.
Otherwise, in 2009, about 45 judges and prosecutors have left the justice system after failing to meet certain criteria.
