Fighting corruption remains taboo, no senior official sentenced to prison

Ehat Miftaraj, director at the Kosovo Institute for Justice (IKD), says the topic of fighting corruption still remains taboo in Kosovo, and that already as early as 2021 is being characterised as in other years without any act of contempt of form.

Unfortunately, high-level corruption further is one of the taboo topics from the prosecutorial system, the judiciary, but also from the Kosovo Police to investigate, prosecute and try within a reasonable timeline, and where we can say quick to punish those who fall or are part of the misuse of public office. Even 2021 is characterised as the past years where we have a certain number of charges, we have a number of reviews, but that is missing the formal form of bias, there is still a lack of convictions that send top public officials to prison, and there is almost no single case where the property is confiscated to someone”, he said.

Miftaraj says the prescribing of various cases of justice is not innovation in Kosovo, but stresses the importance of self-preservation, which according to him, should be done as soon as possible.

“Forecasting these cases is already no innovation in Kosovo, of course, there are cases where high public figures are charged, if such cases are not handled then you would come to the prescribing of the same ones. If this Government doesn't do the self-using as soon as possible, then we can't expect the cases and actions to be in action. Then we go back to past years where we don't have the correct address of the” investigation, he concluded.

In this case, lawyer Arber Jashari said corruption cases are complicated and demanding professional investigation.

He further points out that citizens' interest is always in corruption, stressing that usually people who are mostly involved in corruption are highly intelligent people.

“Ricts of corruption are more complex cases that require more professional investigations and judgments that often take time. I say this because mainly people who are involved in corruption cases belong to an elite society and are highly intelligent and well aware of the shortcomings of corruption processes. So there are people who know how to act and who have high positions so they don't leave a trace of”.

Among other things, Jashar said that to have better treatment of corruption subjects, there must be more professionals in all areas.

Our trials and prosecutors often have cases of procurement, and they violate procedures, and these cases often know how to be complicated, which we don't have professionals of this issue, and even corruption subjects are always of more interest to the public than thefts and other substances. To have a corruption fight, it takes professionals at all levels, and especially at Police”.

He also mentions prescribing corruption cases, stressing that it entirely depends on the case and on the duration of a criminal act, reports EO.

Two types of prescription, relative and absolute, are known in the theories of right. These descriptions are designed to be followed and judged by certain cases. In corruption cases and prescription, it usually depends on the case in case, the more a criminal offense is punishable, the longer the time of the prescription. But usually the relative prescription is interrupted when the state takes action”, he declared. To have an indictment regarding one case, Jashari points out that there must be investigations that may be involved, without denying that few cases of corruption cases have recently been investigated. For then the indictment should have had investigations of course and it's something we cannot prejudge, because that includes the prosecution and the police, and that the corruption topic is a little complicated and exaggerated”, he concluded.