Kosovo with tougher measures against corruption

The Kosovo government approved on Friday the fulfillments and changes of the Criminal Code in its bid for as strengthening institutions were told in fighting corruption and organised crime. Authorities said the new code has exacerbated measures for criminal acts and preventing the exercise of the office of officials punished for corruption.

But how many new measures in the fight against corruption are sufficient, a phenomenon that Kosovo continues to face with particular criticism when it comes to high-level cases?

Ehat Miftaraj from the Kosovo Institute for Justice says Kosovo has had good legislation to prosecute corruption cases, but has lacked implementation in practice. He says the government's latest initiative will not change reality without a political will to fight this phenomenon.

“Access to measures or sentences in corruption cases from five years to seven years will not make a big difference in practice. What Kosovo is constantly suffering with is the lack of results and punishmental acts in cases of high-level corruption. In this direction if there isn't a change in mentality, there will be a change of logic of justice institutions to implement the Criminal Code in precise terms and these changes will be in some way a continuation of what this government has done since its declaration of independence of”, Miftaraj told the Voice of America.

Various investigations continue to reveal Kosovo as one of the countries most affected by the corruption scale, while the fight against it is a condition for progress towards European integration and visa removal for its citizens.

Kosovo's Special Prosecutor, meanwhile, filed two charges against the two Kosovo government ministers within a week. Last week, an indictment was filed against Minister of Invention Besim Beqaj, involved in the wiretapping scandal, which came to be known as the “proto”, due to the use of this word during communications. While the day before the indictment was filed against Infrastructure Minister Pal Lekaj for abuse of official position at the time he was mayor of the Gjakova municipality.

Observers of the justice system say these charges do not speak of willingness to try corruption cases related to senior officials, since these subjects are, according to them, pending for almost eight years.

Florent Spahija from the Kosovo Democratic Institute says concern remains the establishment of charges on the prosecution's part without sufficient evidence, which are then being rejected by the courts.

Every time there is evidence, the prosecution has to act. We have seen that there are many relatives in public, the prosecution does not always file charges for these cases, it means political link and lack political will in many cases, but also the will of these organs, which is the State Prosecutor's Office but also of courts”, Spahija said.

While, Ehat Miftaraj says recent cases testify that either the prosecution or the justice system aims to establish charges to clear political figures from corruption.

After an indictment filed eight years after, an act that is not professional and cannot be proved in court is the best chance for people who committed criminal acts of corruption to clear up their name and in the court's conviction to be declared innocent and thus unable the state to punish those who committed criminal acts, to be unable to seize property acquired illegally, and what is even worse than it is to impose justice in the first place, Miftar said.

A report released by the Kosovo Institute for Justice notes that most allegations filed for corruption at the high level have failed.

Concerns about this phenomenon have also raised international representatives in Kosovo, who have warned that this year they will push ahead with justice reforms as an opportunity to remove Kosovo from the ranks of the most vulnerable countries.