FOL: Kosovo still remains vulnerable to corruption

So it was said at the discussion of the FOL Movement, until the report “Treatment of corruption subjects was released in the last decade in Kosovo, the impact of legislative changes”.

Among other things, the period of the past ten years is analysed, respectively, the impact of legal reform, institutional investments and training programmes on reducing corruption.

This report analyses the period of the last ten years, between 2015 and 2024 respectively, in two timelines of 2015-2019 and 2020-2024, attempting to identify how much legal reform, institutional investment and training programmes have affected corruption cases, respectively, whether or not they have had a positive effect on tackling corruption cases. In the first five-year period, unclear competencies between P The SRK and key prosecutors created overlapment of investigations, while courts, without a dedicated department, closed less than 40 %s of cases per year. The treatments were numerous, but did not produce measurable increases in the quality of investigations.

By 2020, a more structured approach begins: The Special Department is founded in the Pristina Foundation Court, the new Criminal Code is adopted with stricter sentences and, very importantly, the Supreme Court approves the specific guide for corruption cases aimed at unifying penal policy. The PSRK maintains high efficiency, especially in 2017, but regular prosecutors, especially Pristina's, continue to face heavy loads and dependence on final results. On the judicial side, the new department has paved the way for more focused treatment of complex cases, although statistical reporting 2022-2024 remains ununified and prevents a clear assessment of real progress”, said FOL Movement Executive Director Medition Demolli-Niman.

Consultant Albert Avdiu said legal intervention after 2020 created more precise infrastructure, but results in practice move slower. He stressed that the lack of co-ordination and fragmented structures negatively affected the efficiency of investigations and penalties.

When we compare the period 2015-2019 to 2020-2024, it is clear that legal interventions have given the system a more precise infrastructure, but the results on the ground go slower than the provisions on paper. In the first phase, laws adopted in 2013 were implemented without specialised mechanisms and strict limits of competencies, so the basic prosecutors carried most of the allegations but reached a limited report of charges.

The judiciary, meanwhile, was operating with departments of serious crimes distributed to all seven basic courts, without an exclusive body for P substance SRK's without sufficient numbers of experienced judges. This fragmented structure and lack of common standards in punishment contributed to the high stock of unresolved issues and to soft penalties, mainly fines or conditional measures. Kosovo society does not seem to be very corrupt, it is something to study where it is running. Even the judicial system follows the";x0> prosecutorial system, Avdiu said.

While Supreme Court Judge Burim Ademi estimated that frequent legal changes are damaging the timing of the judicial practice. He said more consistency and research are needed for sustainable institutional construction.

The findings in the report will be taken into consideration to advance direction in the justice system. We should bear in mind that the criminal aspect rules out treatment opportunities and therefore creates problems in the context of practice. This affects citizens' credibility, adds the fact that when the legislation changes, judicial practices are at stake.

Not enough research has been done, this creates real construction problems that would produce an effect on the courts to implement correctly in the face of any criminal process. It has had a goal to continue with the trends on the list of legislation sanctions, some of the cases have influenced the raising of sanctions, we see it has had no effect, either in combat or in effect. This shows that no frequent changes in legislation are needed because we damage more than we help”, Ademi said.

The director of the Agency for Prevention of Corruption, Yll Buleskaj, noted the lack of handling cases by courts, stressing that failure to carry out the task contributes to spreading corruption”. He said the new law has given them more power, but implementation in practice remains a challenge.

This project contributes greatly because it lists numbered cases and efficiency, where even citizens can use it. He has our support as an agency. Failure to carry out the task contributes to corruption, corruption substances must be carried out. What we've noted is unfortunately the opposite is that there's been no treatment of the agency as it used to be in court, no acceleration has been observed. We have a law of purpose, we have had challenges before, then the new law has given us more power. Each declaration subject has an additional deadline for improving property declaration”, Buleskaj said.