an hour agoLaw on Prosecution, Kurti and Haxhiu were warned early from Venice
Periskopi(3 years ago)
(3 years ago)The Constitutional Court has today declared the Law for the Prosecutorial Council of Kosovo invalid, following a request for consideration by the PDK and the LDK. In announcing the Constitutional, the decision has been justified with serious concerns that after the change and implementation of the law on the part of power, the constitutional independence of the Prosecutorial Council and the partition of [...]
The fall of this law has preceded a long political struggle between power and opposition, but also a lengthy legal debate, including the Venice Commission, giving an opinion at least twice.
Kurt and Haxhi were “warned”
In December 2021, the Venice Commission had rejected the principal provisions of the Bill for the Kosovo Prosecutorial Council prepared by the Government. In the published opinion, the Commission had considered the Kosovo Government's plan for changing the Law for the Prosecutorial Council dangerous.
The “Reform should not lead to KKP's submission to the ruling majority. The amendments propose that all independent members be elected in simple majority in the Assembly. This proposal increases the risk of unnecessary political influence on the KKP and should re-evaluate”, the Venice Commission's opinion said.
In December 2021, the Commission stressed that it should ensure that the basic KKP component is sufficiently pluralistic, so that members appointed with the ruling majority votes in the Parliament will not be able to lead alone.
The simple majority resolution must be replaced by a proportional electoral system, or the appointment of some independent members from independent foreign institutions or civil society”, the recommendation was said.
In the December opinion of the Venice Commission, Justice Ministry Albulen Haxhiu had declared that her mission had revised the draft amendments. She had asked for a second opinion from the Venice Commission on February 25th, 2022.
By March 2023, the Venice Commission had come up with additional recommendations.
Although constant the changes made in this law had made progress compared with preliminary versions, the Venice Commission had estimated there was still room for improvement.
In the opinion of March 2022, the Venice Commission had come up with additional recommendations as follows:
-To exclude the chief prosecutor's possible unjust influence on other members of the KKP, the law must make it clear that prosecution members sit at the KKP in their personal quality and that the chief prosecutor cannot use his/her competencies of their hierarchical superiors, directly or indirectly, to influence their work on this organ;
“Vision” should not be on the list of criteria used by the Committee tasked with selecting port members;
The law could foresee procedural safeguard clauses, making the process of selecting port members more objective: expert participation, reasoning;
The law should more clearly describe the process of selecting members of prosecutors from the prosecutor's community ( perhaps introducing a form of preferential voting);
The porota selective procedure must also be clarified; in particular, while the Commission may filter out some candidates who do not enjoy sufficient support so that the Assembly provides a long list of candidates acceptable to the choice.
Kosovo's MPs had adopted the second reading amendment to the Law to the Kosovo Prosecutorial Council by June 23rd 2022.
Out of 61 deputies participating in the vote, 60 had voted “for”, while an MP had abstained.
