Vetting after Venice: Haxhiu says he and Kurt will meet opposition

Within this week, Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti is expected, along with Justice Minister Albulen Haxhiu, to send invitations to opposition party leaders for the meeting. The discussion at these meetings, which will be held separately with the opposition, will be the vetting process for which Minister Haxhiu himself vows to close within its mandate.

In an interview for Kosovo, the Haxhiu ministry said that law reform requires political unification, so it said that, along with Kurti, they have planned meetings with opposition parties.

We plan to meet with the prime minister first to inform them of the planning we have in relation to the process and invite them if they have issues they think they should address to do so. It's true that it's not practice that even before the drafting of documents is completed with the ministries to contribute opposition parties, because then their contribution is made to the Kosovo Assembly, but given the sensitivity of the process and the necessity to successfully complete this process we will invite opposition subjects to meetings... Separately, parliamentary groups -- or political party leaders -- will be invited earlier, separately. I hope to respond positively to our invitation for meetings, it's not only up to our will, so I wish to respond positively, but that our attempt at these meetings will be until next month, July... First we have considered that we should have separate meetings with each parliamentary group”, the justice minister said.

For this process, which as a government was planned throughout the justice system, but the Venice Commission later recommended that it become veto only for KKP leaders, KCK and chief prosecutor and court heads, Justice Minister Albulen Haxhiu, says that somewhere in April 2023, the transitional mechanism for the veting process will begin work.

If we act according to our plans, I believe that after we send the constitutional amendments to the Kosovo Assembly, the Speaker is obliged to submit to the Constitutional Court's opinion because constitutional amendments get a green light after they are voted in the Parliament and we cannot know how long the Constitutional Court takes to deal with these amendments, but our plans are that until the first quarter of next year start working on the transitional mechanism. You know, then, the process of selecting troops, but within the four-year government mandate I am convinced that the process will be completed”, she said.

Even at the meeting of the task force that was held yesterday for the Vetting Process, no representatives of the Kosovo Prosecutorial Council and the Judiciary did attend. And this behaviour is finding it unreasonable to see Kosovo justice first.

When we now have an opinion from the Venice Commission that is a very professional body and I consider objectively addressing such issues, I think there is no reason to say that we do not respect the Venice Commission's recommendations. Kosovo does not have the luxury of being a country that does not apply the Venice Commission's recommendations... There can be no other reason as long as we as governments are interested in exacting Venice's opinion I don't think there might be someone that we don't want to apply as such. Therefore, despite their absence in this working group, we will continue our efforts to co-operate with them, but I think we have no other way to prove our will for cooperation besides calling at these” meetings, Haxhiu stressed.

Otherwise, the Venice Commission's opinions of self-preservation along with the State Bureau for verification and confiscation of unwarranted property have been published early last week.