Special Court orders parties to provide greater publicity in judging Thaci and others

The “Pales are therefore ordered to engage in inter-party discussions on this issue and by 31 May 2023 provide solutions to ensure greater publicity of these procedures, Judge Smith said.

He initiated the order with the sentence that “this jury is concerned that all evidence so far has been heard in private or closed session”, reports the “Justice Vow “.

Judge Smith said that under Article 21, paragraph 2 of the law, the accused have the right to listen to public and fair sessions and that it is the public's interest that these procedures be as much as possible in public.

On the other hand, he said the court also reminds you that in paragraph 1 of the order for the development of the process, parties and participants should respect the public character of the process.

This court ruled that legal arguments of evidence submissions from the participating parties be made in closed or private sessions only when it is strictly necessary in accordance with the 120 rule of regulation”, he said.

Likewise, Judge Smith said that unfortunately so far a large part of this trial has been made in closed or private hearings, and the need for witness protection is to justify the protection measures ordered by the court that in turn concerned the public character of the process and that this is necessary to protect witnesses.

The “at the same time is important for the trial to continue to be public and for the court to be less concerned that it does not always become private, but to become as public as”, he said later.

Also, according to him, the court requires bias from the parties to ensure a greater measure of publicity of these procedures.

And that the court, according to Judge Smith, will consider ordering parties to propose public editing versions of transcripts in private or closed sessions so the public can understand what happened.

“However, if the parties through discussions between the sides come up with alternative solutions, the court will take into account these proposals to achieve greater publicity”, he said further.

The judge said that for other witnesses, the parties are instructed to take into account the principle of publicity when demanding that witness testimony be heard in private or closed hearings.

We will not object to, even adding this, getting in and out of private and closed sessions because we understand it's part of the process in a matter like this, he said.

In addition, he also said they believe lawyers will exercise their good judgment to organise questions in order to promote publicity.

With this, I mean to have the witness, and we're going to do this with the next witness and the materials that are confidential toʹi determine from the beginning and then continue with the public session until something is necessary to protect, and we also think that lawyers will be careful not to reveal confidential information during public hearings and will formulate their questions in such a way as to avoid such events as these, Judge Smith said at the end of the oral order.

Following that order, Kadri Veselini's defense has responded specifically to attorney Ben Emmerson, who said that with this order it gives the impression that defence is responsible for this.

Because we're at the public hearing, anyone who listens can create the impression that it's responsible, because we've intervened in the public hearing from the start, I want to say that every one. Of this is the result of the prosecution's request that has been approved by the court, he said.

Judge Smith said, however, that this order was not given to blame anyone but that Emmerson said that this may not have been the purpose but that so formulated it seems that defenders are somehow guilty of it.

That, Judge Smitha said there were approaches when someone violated the rules, citing the names of a protected witness or witnesses, and this was not only from the prosecution and that, according to him, there were intentional violations that caused problems.

We haven't created such problems because we've been in private session, I'm worried about the fact that the impression that you can make the public from the order that just gave is that we are somehow in agreement with this situation that has been created for the fact that this trial was conducted in private session”, Emmerson said at the end.