Parliament has no law enforcement monitoring report

In the event of dissolution, the procedure that could follow Kosovo's prime minister's resignation and the collapse of the Government, this composition of the Parliament, among other things, according to experts, would be kept in mind for the lower level of monitoring law enforcement.

Consistent MPs have been criticised for failing to properly commitment and not realising the work plans on the basis of the Assembly Rule. International representatives in Kosovo, but also nongovernmental organisations that monitor the work of this institution, have recently stated that not laws under the pre-conception dynamics have been adopted, but those that have been adopted are not being monitored whether or not they are being implemented.

Artan Murati from the Kosovo Democratic Institute, the institute that monitors the work of the Parliament, told Radio Free Europe that the most frequent reason for failing to hold hearings relates to the lack of quorum. But it has, even in the organisational aspect, “The head of the Assembly has failed”.

Besides having had no regular management of plenary sessions, there have often been calls for extraordinary sessions which, in a sense, have slowed down the work of the Parliament and the process of adopting laws. But, even more disturbing is the fact that when we talk about monitoring, law enforcement, since no report of any parliamentary commission has managed to be approved in the plenary hearings in terms of monitoring law enforcement”, Murati said.

He said statements that Kosovo has good laws, but that implementation is not happening -- for institutions and MPs themselves -- appear not to pose any concern or problem.

Such a problem is not seen as being taken seriously by MPs even though this time there are no concrete actions either by parliamentary commissions, but neither by the Parliament's Headship to end this inaction in monitoring the implementation of the” laws.

The bad news is there's a trend of falling into numbers. If 16 laws were on monitoring in 2015, in 2018 there was only one finished, while in 2019 we still have no report approved by the Parliament of Kosovo on monitoring law enforcement”, Murati said.

He said the whole Kosovo Assembly agenda has been dominated by political developments and issues like political dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia and the customs tax imposed on products from Serbia. These two issues, he says, are still holding the Assembly and the ruling coalition itself on hold.

Even Riccardo Serry, chief of the Political, Economic and European Integration Section in the European Union Office in Kosovo, at a meeting with members of the Parliamentary Commission for European Integration, had declared that Kosovo's Assembly in recent months has had several obstacles to the realisation of work and plans.

“We should stress the fact that the situation in the Assembly is very polarised. There are some problems with the work of the Assembly. There is often a lack of quorum, often there is delays in drafting legislation, often lacking structure and organization when it comes to calling plenary sessions”.

The location hasn't been collected in a long time. Therefore, all of this that we stressed affects the productivity of the Assembly and, if I can say, affects the citizens of Kosovo in general as well because this is the overall work of the Assembly”, Serry said.

Kosovo Assembly MP Ilir Deda, who is currently acting in the country without parliamentary groups, told Radio Free Europe that inadequate labour management has influenced much within this institution not to function properly.

The “Picca is primarily about managing the Parliament, on the part of the Parliament Speaker Kadri Wessel and disrespecting the Labour Rule from the Speaker of the Parliament. The bad management of the Parliament has deeply degraded the work of the Kosovo Assembly. The second is also about political polarisation, which is normal in a democratic country where there is incompatibility to move forward and here the majority has not shown obedience to opposition demands”, Deda said.

Opposition political parties in the Kosovo Assembly consider the lack of parliamentary majority and legitimacy to lead with institutions has been unable to function the normal functioning of the Kosovo Assembly.

It has been longer than a year since the Parliament, the ruling coalition did not have the majority of votes for decision-making, but the opposition did not have enough votes to challenge Government. Such a situation in the Assembly exists since the Serbian List, which has representation in Government, but in the country passed the opposition separately.

The Kosovo Assembly so far from the hearings held, out of 143 pre-planned laws, has adopted only 27 of them.