Turkish deportation could bring new situation to Kosovo report

The European Union has estimated that the arrest and deportation of six citizens who have lived legally in Kosovo has raised questions about respecting the regular judicial process.

“The rule of law is the fundamental principle of the European Union”, has reminded Kosovo institutions, officials in Brussels.

Kosovo's efforts to strengthen democracy and rule of law, as the Stabilisation and Association Agreement envisions, in this case have failed, connoisseurs of legal aspects and those of European integration processes say.

Florent Spahija, legal expert from the Kosovo Democratic Institute (KDI), told Radio Free Europe that Kosovo institutions have violated some basic human rights and freedoms when these actions occurred, and these persons have illegally left the state of Kosovo.

He says Kosovo as a democratic country and by laws should follow all its procedures, which it has within its capacity for deporting people and the place it deposits, as he says, should be the place where rules and laws are respected.

Kosovo, when it has made the insight of six Turkish citizens, has gone arbitraryly, as no information is issued to the public as to who has given the order and what order has been made, has the right of those people to complain to competent organs been respected, originally in the Constitutional Court for eight days after accepting the verdict. Then, at the Court of Appeals another eight days to appeal that ruling, we have no court ruling or any other state institutions, as the law envisions to deport these foreign citizens, who have had residence permits under the rules of our country”, Spahija says.

On March 29th, six Turkish citizens were arrested in Kosovo and then deported to Turkey. Five of those deported were employees in Kosovo's “schools Mehmet Akif”, the property of Turkish cleric Fetullah Gulen, meanwhile, the sixth person was a Turkish doctor.

Erdogan blames cleric Gulen for a coup effort in Turkey in 2016.

All these developments by field analysts are said to bring negative effects on the country.

Avni Mazrek, professor of European Law, speaking of Radio Free Europe, said this whole situation created in Kosovo by several acts does not serve what Kosovo needs most to testify, which is institutional democratic capacities.

Kosovo has not only now, but also in the past qualified as a country that has no institutional stability. A chaotic situation of institutional interaction that has occurred in this case will not be a positive note for Kosovo, and above all, neither of the European Union countries has been subjected to an aggressive Erdogan tone for deportation or surrender of those people who are accused by his government of coup”, Mazreku says.

These actions have not always taken other states because there is no guarantee of a justice process for people accused of”, he said.

Blerta Deliu-Codra, chairman of the Commission for European Integration in the Kosovo Assembly, tells Radio Free Europe that they have not yet held discussions with European Union representatives to see if recent developments have had effects.

The “is a new situation that has happened in the Republic of Kosovo following the arrest of six Turkish members, but we have not yet received the latest impacts. We have not yet met to hold discussions, whether with representatives of the European Union or with representatives inside, to see if this phenomenon” has had clear effects, Deliu-Codra points out.

“Anyway, I am optimistic that we will continue our commitment, empower institutional mechanisms, and I believe we will manage to have a solution to this problem”, she said.

Following initial statements from the EU, it is expected that other details about Kosovo's advances, challenges and impasses will be published right under the Progress Report, which the European Commission publishes every year for countries which aspire to European integrations and achieving EU standards in the future.

Kosovo and the European Union have so far signed a contractual agreement and that is the Stabilisation and Association Agreement. Following verbal statements, with the signing of the SAA, Kosovo had pledged to respect European standards and norms, which apply to aspiring states for EU integration.

The Stabilisation and Association Agreement, which entered into force on April 1, 2016. I aim to support Kosovo's efforts to strengthen democracy and the rule of law.

The SAA requires a country aimed at EU membership, to ensure that its mechanisms of governance and civil society meet the European Union's applied standards.

The Stabilisation and Association Agreement is the first contractual agreement between Kosovo and the European Union, which was considered a first step within the framework of European integration processes for Kosovo.