Kosovo prosecutors have filed charges even against the dead, according to IKD report

This is the conclusion of the Kosovo “Prosecutors report freezing charges against the dead of” of the Kosovo Institute for Justice, which has been released during today.

In this report, prosecutors were said to have filed charges against dead persons in court. And that, according to the report, testifies that prosecutors in our country's investigation procedures are not carried out in line with legislation in force and required standards. The charges reportedly raised without even conducting investigations, nor did they allow the suspects to be declared or questioned about alleged allegations in the indictment.

In the report, nine cases of violations of the law were filed in the establishment of charges against dead persons, where prosecutors had filed charges because of the criminal act theft of municipal services. The IKD in this report revealed that the indictment had been filed 13 years after the defendant's death.

IKD Executive Director Ehat Miftaraj said the report is the result of monitoring court hearings in the past two years, where this monitoring has resulted in a number of considerations of the charges filed against dead persons.

The result of monitoring judicial sessions in the last two years, where IKD has monitored over a thousand court hearings in all Kosovo courts. Through the analysis of cases the product of systematic monitoring of IKD judicial hearings has found that in the past two years alone, there have been a significant number of cases when state prosecutors freeze charges against persons who died long ago. This is the result of the establishment of these charges without conducting investigations at all and ever questioning the defendant, who is also the criterion set with the Kosovo criminal procedure code”, he said.

I achieved Rezniqi from the IKD, said that only over the past two years have there been a considerable number of cases where judges have been initially forced to weigh the procedure because the accused have been dead persons.

According to her, they were dead even before the indictment was filed, which is that at the tribunal, prosecutors have handed in charges filed against dead persons.

Rezniqi said this means that the investigation procedure by prosecutors in our country is not conducted in line with required standards.

These cases are primarily related to criminal theft of municipal services, all of these cases testify that these persons were faced with charges simply because the electrical distributor was registered in their name, no matter when it is said that the criminal work was committed at a certain time they were only dead at that time. The defendants were never given the chance to declare, or simply to question, the claims said in the indictment”, she said.

She said that if there was an actual investigation into cases identified by the IKD in this report in any case it would not come to the establishment of the indictment.

Meanwhile, Yll Zekiaj from the IKD has spoken of the consequences caused by the establishment of direct charges, where he said it proves prosecutors are not implementing the principles and standards guaranteed with the Penal Procedure Code in order to realise the rights of defendants in criminal procedure. This, he says, causes the violation of human rights and freedoms.

We also have consequences in the state budget when we know that automatically in any case of judicial rest procedure, which in this case is necessary when one of the defendants is found dead in the procedure and cannot be developed. Then, by cutting procedures, the state budget is directly damaged. In addition to undermining the state budget, there are other consequences that actually have reduced the judiciary's reputation, then citizens' distrust of the judiciary and damage to the judicial uncertainty of judges, which is one of the key elements that citizens today are completely insecure on the judicial side”, he said.

The IKD has also published three recommendations urging prosecutors to ensure that they do not violate the legal security of Kosovo citizens and implement legal provisions guaranteeing the rights of defendants in criminal procedure.

The other recommendation is that prosecutors avoid the practice created for establishing direct charges, without the development of investigations, and without questioning the defendants, having enough to meet the formal criteria, that of punishing the work up to three years in prison.

The IKD has recommended that the court turn such charges into prosecution and, in the event of failure to meet the same, cast them as irregular.