KDI: Government Through Coficiency Lowers Salaries and Insults Justice's Independence

Kosovo Democratic Institute - KDI, estimates that this value of the 105-euro cofficient does not match the expectations and demands of public sector workers. Moreover, the fundamental flaw of this law remains the issue of intervention in the justice system.

According to KDI, this value of the cofficient depreciates the position of the judge and the prosecutor, lowering their salaries by about 25%. So a Judge of the Foundation Court will be paid 1,200 euros while his/her base salary was 1600 euros a month.

“The reduction of the current salaries of judges and prosecutors, which from the Government is being argued as the achievement of “barazia” of salaries in the public sector, is against constitutional and contrary to the Constitutional Court Act, case No. July 219/19. The lowering of salaries is also contrary to the Law on Courts, which is clearly determined that judges' salaries cannot be reduced during the mandate for which they have been appointed, except in cases when disciplinary sanctions are imposed by the Kosovo Judicial Council”, KDI response said.

Therefore, according to the Institute, the abolition of these provisions must certainly precede a rationale by the Executive, which should be under the spirit of “forevision” and “judicial security” that this law should provide. The issue of lowering the salaries of judges and prosecutors has also been criticised by European Commission experts and the EU Office in Kosovo.

“They have considered that lowering judges and prosecutors' salaries with the new law, especially in such a significant amount, is very disturbing and risks violating the principle of judicial independence. Even the judicial practices of other European states, as well as the Venice Commission, have highlighted the fact that the individual judge's salary can be reduced only as a consequence of an estimated economic crisis that would represent exceptional circumstances for the state, and in the current context, we do not have any crisis or exceptional economic situation declared by the government. On the contrary, Kosovo this year has approved the largest budget ever, at the value of around 3.2 billion euros”.

KDI considers such a reduction in salaries for the justice system violates the principle of separation of powers and is direct interference in the independence of judicial power. /Periscopi/