Current for north: There is compensation for millions spent by 2012

Kosovo citizens have lost their legal right to compensation for the electricity bills they have paid on behalf of the residents of four northern municipalities from 1999 to 2012.

Kosovo Ombudsman Naim Qeli explains for Radio Free Europe that demands for debt returns or caused damage can be made in retrospectal terms for just five years, on the contrary, the legal deadline for exercising this right expires.

From the Kosovo Institute for Justice states the same, saying that, based on the Law on Obligations Relations, citizens have already lost the right to compensation for bills paid for 13 years.

From June 1st of this year, their compensation will begin only for bills paid between 2012 and 2017 .

This decision was made last month, given a lawsuit filed by the Ombudsman in 2017.

At the request of the court, the Board of Energy Regulatory Office (ZRRE) obliged electricity distribution services to compensate consumers.

Why do citizens in the north pay the electricity?

Residents of northern Mitrovica municipalities Zvecan, Zubin Potok and Leposaviq most Serbs do not pay for the flow spent since the end of the war in 1999.

The refusal resulted from civic disobedience, but also the impact of various structures there, operating under Serbia's correction.

By the end of 2017, the current spent in the north paid citizens of other parts of Kosovo who received higher bills.

From 2017 onward, following numerous citizens' complaints and the indictment filed by the ombudsman ʹ responsibility for the payment passed on to the Kosovo System, Transmission and Market Operator, COSTT, while subsidies divided the Kosovo government.

In 2022, then Kosovo and Serbia agreed to implement an energy agreement reached since 2013, within the dialogue on normalising relations.

In practice, this agreement began to apply in late February.

The Constitutional Court in Pristina made its decision on compensation in 2021, with which it demanded the return of over 40m euros to Kosovo citizens.

The verdict was then confirmed by the Court of Appeals and Supreme, and in March of this year the Constitutional Court.

In an interview on April 13th, the head of the ZERE Board, Ymer Feyzullahu, has provided no concrete information about how much euros per month consumers will be compensated for 2012-2017.

That question was not answered by companies for power supply, but also by power supply, K ESCO and KEDS.

“Human rights breach”

Ombudsman Naim Celaj says the court's decision to compensate citizens for only five years was taken after the case was filed in 2017.

By law, he recalls, the retrospect period cannot go beyond five years.

Gezim Shala of the Kosovo Institute for Justice echoes that statement.

“If we talk about debts before 2012, under the Law on Obligations Relations, this requirement has already been signed [v.j. And there's no more legal means to win it in court. In the situation we are in, this right is already lost”, Shala says.

Both Cela and Shala consider that billing the costs of the electricity spent in the north to citizens and other parts of the country was a violation of human rights.

In relation to citizens' rights violations, in this case of consumers, violations took place at any moment when there was the fate of this nature”, the Ombudsman says.

Shala adds that citizens were violated, in fact, some rights to property, because they have paid for services they have not received, then the right to equality before the law and the right of consumers.

All of these have been recorded from the three steps of the courts, and all these have been confirmed by the Constitutional Court, through an act of judgment issued”, Shala says.

What do citizens say?

Some citizens with whom Free Europe Radio in Pristina has spoken expressed disappointment with the fact that they will have compensation for bills they paid between 1999 and 2012.

You pay for something you used. Something you haven't used, you don't have to pay”, says Muhamet Ahmeti.

Tell me I'm bringing you justice, which is not justice, of course you feel offended. This is not justice”, he says.

“those 13 years never undo”, says Meghqi Light.

“We are violated and our rights violated. We're looted by the state”, she says.

Hanumshahe Ibrahimi says that violating the rights of citizens is somehow justified because there is no possibility of complaint.

I don't see a complaint address. The courts are going very slowly... I don't see address”, she says.

In 2012, KEK officials had declared why the overall debt of consumers in the north, since the end of the war until then, was estimated to be over 100m euros.

The total value of annual bills for the four municipalities there, according to official data, ranged from 8m to 10m euros.