Practical Results Fail in Fighting Corruption

The group for Jury and Political Studies estimates that concrete results are lacking in implementing the Kosovo Prosecutorial Council plan in the fight against corruption and economic crime.

This was made known at the table organised today by GLPS on the “Monitorisation of the KKP Strategic Plan, where the prosecutorial system is standing in the fight against corruption and economic crime”.

The findings of this report have been presented by author Whitea Maxhun, according to which high-level corruption cases have often withdrawn.

It has also raised the issue that it is a limited number of final seizures and calls for sequencing.

“Fighting high-level corruption is an indicator for measuring prosecutors' efficiency in treating priority subjects. In reports of the KKP's monitoring mechanisms, the profiles of the accused are not mentioned in order to clearly know how many acts have been filed against top officials. And there are also cases when the indictment is passed to court in the first review, yet in many cases dealing with senior state officials, the Prosecutor's Office requires the same withdrawal... The limited number of final seizures and requests for sequencing, where only a final seizure has been reported during this two-year period. Thus, there is a large disproportion between seizures and seizures, and should be stressed that in most cases the Prosecution does not apply for secuestation and seizure”, she said.

Another source of this monitoring is the failure to complete the poor corruption substances of 2001-2013, where there is the risk of prescribing or aging these substances.

Maxhuni has indicated that from monitoring it is a high number of rejections of criminal charges and interruptions of investigations without justification.

The high number of dropping criminal charges and interrupting unreasoning investigations. So, given the way criminal charges were prosecuted during 2016-2018, we note that a significant number of criminal charges for 2017 have been rejected throughout all the prosecutions. KPK's reasoning and mechanisms have often failed to address this high-profile criminal castdown phenomenon. In this regard, we have a small number of charges filed, namely, criminal charges that resulted from high charges, with only 40 percent resulting in charges in 2017. The other found, which is also highlighted in the progress report, is the poor quality of charges and prosecution”, Maxim said.

From Maxhunt's monitoring reveals that many of the charges handled in the courts are rejected with the reasoning that they do not include all the first elements in the criminal procedure code.

Another find by GPL is the lack of disciplinary measures company to prosecutors and chief prosecutors who fail to meet the goals stemming from the strategic plan.

The group for Juridical and Political Studies has also issued several recommendations, including in order to seriously address criminal allegations, prosecutors must resist political influence when it comes to senior officials' profiles.

The judge at the Supreme Court of Kosovo, Agim Maliqi, has said the results are not missing, but should not be satisfied.

“Securemation is a very early phase that takes place during the investigation of an asset, and there may be errors, on the part of the prosecutor and the court, then on treatment when it comes to seizures are more careful. Since it must be proven beyond the suspicion that an asset, a property, has been acquired by criminal offence or is the means by which criminal acts were committed”, he said.

On the other hand, law enforcement organisations have said there is still much work to be done.

Ehat Miftaraj from the Kosovar Institute for Justice has said Kosovo institutions are not serious in fighting corruption and organised crime, and especially in marked cases.

He has said the Kosovo Prosecutorial Council does not publish the strategic plan regarding fighting corruption, as according to IKD reports, there are over 600 prosecutors, and 200 judges have been subject to investigation by the prosecutor's prosecutor's office due to violations in corruption cases during their treatment.

Miftaraj has said that in high-level corruption cases, most cases almost fall into either initial or second consideration.

“We are witnesses that only in recent times have we had three four extremely important cases that have taken an interest in the public as is the case “proto”, “Venters”, case “Stantons” and the case of director for economic crimes Emin Beqiri. We're talking about cases that if we take legal terms based on the Penal Procedure Code almost all, if we take the case “Proto”, if we take the case “Stanta” in no case respects the legal deadlines defined with the Penal Procedure Code. As long as “Stanta” we have an indictment that was set up by the chief state prosecutor's office certainly constitutes the largest scandal in justice since after the war, since under the Penal Procedure Code it is not allowed to have the indictment filed by the chief state prosecutor's office, but this is an exclusive question of the Founding Prosecutors. Despite the fact that this indictment has been raised for years is still under initial consideration”, he said.

Genc Nimoni from the organisation Get up, has said that if KPK statistics are analysed in numbers look like achievements, but what's worrying, according to him, is the way of solving corruption cases and organised crime.

The disturbing “is also the fact that lack of prosecution and punishment for high profile cases. We have a lot of high profile charges that are built in the first phase, in the initial review, and they are dismissed. We have charges against the mayors, the former ministers, who are dismissed. And there are two reasons why these are rejected, the first is that the indictments can be well-signed that it's a professional prosecutor's defect, and the second reason is because someone deliberately follows and persecutes them, as if the other is harmful”, it is expressed.

The KKP's Strategic Plan Monitoring Report is made by the Group for Jury and Political Studies, and is supported by the American Embassy in Kosovo.