The Government initiative with the Draft-law on inspections

In the meeting held on the 22 March 2017, the Government of Kosovo took the decision no. 05/138 to establish the working group which is going to analyze and prepare the recommendations as well as the concept document along the Draft-law on inspections. According to this decision, the working group consists of 15 members at the level of the General Secretary or another person authorized by the General Secretary and that the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) is going to be the leading and the main coordinating body in this process. Besides the 15 representatives of relevant Ministries and Office of the Prime Minister, the World Bank and the European Commission are going to be represented in the working group. In fact, according to the Government decision, the working group will be supported in this process by experts of the World Bank.

The draft-law on inspections is not included in the Government legislative program for 2017, but  it was part of the legislative programs of 2016, 2015, 2013, 2012 and 2011. Except for 2016 when MTI was planned to be the institution proposing the draft-law on inspections, the institution which proposed this draft-law in the previous years was the Office of the Prime Minister, sometimes under the name Inspections and some other times under the name Inspectorates.

GAP Institute has conducted research over this aspect since 2013, has drafted reports and policy analysis on this aspect and also as part of the research, GAP Institute has met with all inspectorates in the central level as well as a few in the local level. After the research, GAP Institute has had a number of meetings with certain Assembly Committees and has been part of the public hearings (Committee on Economic Development, Infrastructure, Trade and Industry and the Committee on Legislation) when the draft law on inspections has been discussed. Given that the draft law on inspections delivered from the Government to the Assembly in 2013 did not provide for a solution to the inspectorates as part of a number of ministries, the Assembly had decided to send back this draft law to the Government. According to the research of GAP Institute on “Inspectorates in Kosovo: organization and functioning”, inspectorates in Kosovo do need a law which regulates their organization, sets some rules and principles about their internal organization, ensures a certain level of independency from the ministry (however keeping a strong link with the line ministry), have a categorization of positions and salaries equal to every inspectorate and some other measures which are recommended by the research paper.

The Government initiative to establish the working group aimed an analyzing and preparing the recommendations along with the concept document and the draft law is positive. However, such an initiative has to take into account the research, findings and recommendations of different reports including those of GAP Institute. The working group has to have into consideration the need of inspectorates for a better legal solution and regulation, for a better organization and functioning, for a higher level of independency in their work and a number of principles of their inspection work to be included in the law. The working group should not repeat the work and the failure of the previous attempts of the Government to draft a law on inspections or alike which does not address the problems which have been raised several times so far by the inspectorates in Kosovo.