2020 failed year for justice system

Organisations dealing with monitoring the work of the justice system consider that 2020 for justice institutions marks only reggression. In the decline in the efficiency of the work of the courts and prosecutors, it also affected the COVID-19, where these institutions have worked only for emergency and reduced staff cases.

The executive director of the Kosovo Institute for Justice, Ehat Miftaraj, tells Kosovo that in terms of fighting organised crime, fighting high-level corruption and confiscating property 2020 could be considered a failure.

He says the pandemic COVID-19 has affected the efficiency of the work in justice institutions, however, says that in certain cases the pandemic has been used to offer amnesty for certain cases.

“At the critical points where Kosovo has been asked by the European Union, by international partners to have a radical change so that we can advance into European integrations or in relation to visa liberalisation such as fighting organised crime, fighting high-level corruption, confiscating property can almost be said freely that it has been a failed year. A year that has seen a decline cannot be spoken of any progress. In this direction I believe that 2020 was a self-counting year, which did not achieve that the state, the institutions of justice in some way restore citizens' trust in their work, make any changes that would have a positive impact on Kosovo's future”, he says.

That there has been no progress in the justice system over the past year, Rhesa Hoxha, from the Group for Jury and Political Studies, says.

In the decline of the efficiency of the work of justice institutions, she says that even the COVID-19 pandemic has affected.

Even during 2020 we cannot say that Kosovo's judicial system has had a satisfactory performance. It's probably supposed to be mentioned here that the COVID-19 pandemic had its impact on reducing efficiency and, of course, increasing the number of cases active in courts, which has therefore impacted the entire system performance. As a comprehensive assessment of the work of the judicial system, however, we still remain at the point where we have been. If we talk about fighting organised crime and corruption, we still don't have the final verdict with which high political figures are punished, which means they're accused or suspected to be part of corrupt relatives. At the same time, we still face weak charges, which prosecutors fail to represent adequately even in court, which results in free decisions or decisions that we do not pride on having taken”, Hoxha says.

Genc Nimoni, from the organisation Get up, also says 2020 was aggressive, particularly in the fight against organised crime and corruption.

About the efficiency of the court's work, he says they have done a research on the first six months of the year, where he says there are 25 per cent fewer cases resolved compared to the same period in 2019.

The “generally in 2020 has been a reggressive year in court, in particular in fighting corruption and organised crime. If we take and look at the statistics we've published in a recent report in November, then we find that we have fewer cases solved and more problems in the justice system. This is found not only by our reports, but also by international reports in particular by the U.S. State report, then by progress reports and other reports that are loanable. If we take these statistics and look at them, then we see that if we compare it by the years, we have about 25 percent less resolved cases in 2020, this is for the first six months if we compare it to the previous years. Until we have about 212 cases of resolved corruption in 2019, we have only 52 now in the 6th month of 2020. That means a drop in the number of resolved corruption cases, if we look at content then the type of punishments then that even more leaves to wish for”, he says.

The year we left behind has also been marked by reactions from the embassies of QUINT states and the European Union Office to the Kosovo government and the Kosovo Prosecutorial Council to politicise the justice system.

In this regard, the executive director of the Kosovo Institute for Justice, Ehat Miftaraj, points out that during this year the government led by Avdullah Hoti has taken one of the actions, which he calls the most scandalous, for the extinction of Tast-Force against corruption.

Politically, Kosovo in 2020 has unfortunately lost even what previous governments have had political will through some actions at least to convey confidence that they have an interest in fighting organised crime and corruption. The year 2020 has been the opposite, the government has made concrete decisions and concrete actions that have further impacted public opinion, citizens, international partners for the state to be captured in key positions. Then, I believe, 2020 has been the year when the government Hoti has made one of the most scandalous decisions involving the dissolution of the Task Force against corruption. When this is added to the fact that this task force had been dissolved with a government decision without any preliminary analysis, no contextal analysis, no consultation with civil society, no consultation with international partners”, he says.

The year 2020 for law - rule institutions also calls incumbent Justice Minister Selim Selimi, who says that despite the challenges, the work has continued.

We've had a crisis situation, an extraordinary situation, so the courts couldn't hold hearings, the prosecution has been limited to their affairs. But, we are not stopping, so we have tested electronic judgments for the first time and proved successful, it happened in Gjakova, in Prizren, in Pristina, it has succeeded. So we saw that we could use such a system in the future, which would increase the efficiency of the courts. We have had some extensions in some processes, but fortunately none of the court processes have been endangered enough to commit any injustice to one side. So, even beyond the crisis and the state of emergency we've had hearings, we've had executions, and the prosecution has worked, not normally as it should, but we've found ways to increase that efficiency”, he says.

Due to the pandemic, courts most of the time have worked with reduced staff and has addressed only emergency and priority cases.