Serbian Judges, Prosecutors Leave Justice System Problem

20 Serbian judges, and 10 prosecutors a year ago handed over their resignations to leave their positions at the Mitrovica Court and Prosecutor's Court for political reasons.

Although the Prosecutorial Council and the Judicial Council has not yet made decisions on these resignations, their departure creates many challenges and challenges.

In addition, over 100 members of the administrative staff left the Court and Prosecution.

Valon Preteni, spokesman at the Prosecution in Mitrovica, tells of the problems they have had during this time.

“With the resignations of prosecutors and administrative staff from the Serbian community, the work has been greatly exacerbated in the fact that the resigned prosecutors have been in charge of subjects, and this has created difficulties in treating these subjects as well as representing the subjects in court and its branches, prior to their resignation to the prosecution in Mitrovica have been 18 committed prosecutors, and now we have only 8 prosecutors”, Preten said.

By the KKP have shown all the actions they've taken, until they have said that following the investigation and treatment of prosecutors' resignations, the decision will be made on each one.

“Taking into account this situation and the insufficient number of prosecutors and relevant staff in this case, as well as the load of materials that should be handled and the representation of subjects in court, in view of the difficulties created at this time, due to the increased dedication and commitment of the chief prosecutor, prosecutors and administrative staff have been carried out on day-to-day duties and obligations, and, in this respect, subjects with known perpetrators, which Serbian prosecutors have been tasked with are initially distributed for their treatment to current prosecutors at the Constitutional Prosecutors in Mitrovica. Also, the Kosovo Prosecutorial Council (KPK) is under way in the process of analyzing and treating all the resignations offered and following the analysis and treatment of each separately, a decision will be made precisely with these” resignations, the KKP said.

From the Court in Mitrovica, however, they have refused to speak to the camera, the deputy chairman of this Court in a conversation with television has said that the departure of judges has exposed many problems, but rather in the civilian field.

Bekim Veliqi has said that with the help of the KDR, and with the transfer of subjects to other courts, they have managed to manage the situation better so that there are not a lot of outstanding materials left, while two branches of this court continue to be out of office.

While, from civil society and lawyers, they say that the removal of these Serbian officials has caused major damage to the justice system.

“Normically that the resignation of Serbian judges and prosecutors and support staff has caused major consequences, knowing there are over 100, along with support staff, both from the judiciary as well as from the prosecutorial system, which have been removed, while the replacements that have been made have been particularly small on the side of the prosecutorial system”, said Ramadan Makshana, researcher in IKD.

“This year has been chaotic and extraordinary because an unpredictated institutional vacuum has been created, with the resignation of Serbian national judges and prosecutors, and the way it was acted, by the direction of the KRC, I think it was an unfair way because it was acted as if in a state of war, where the subjects in criminal condition, except that they were distributed, have been an inadequate response in proportion to the nature of the volume of matter”, the lawyer Musa Damati said.

The departure of Serbian prosecutors and judges took place at the time when all Serbs left Kosovo's institutions, as a sign of dissatisfaction with government decisions.