The additional three highly anticipated draft laws on the judiciary have been approved
18/05/2010
The draft laws approved by the Government, have been prepared by the Ministry of Justice during March 2009. However, the Government has delayed their approved for more than one year.
During March 2010, the Kosovo Government approved the Draft law on Courts. The new draft law implies the nullification of the current law – Law on Regular Courts of ex-Yugoslav Republic – which dates back from the time of the Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo.
This month, the Kosovo Government has also approved three important draft laws in the field of the judiciary: The Draft Law on the Judicial Council of the Republic of Kosovo, the Draft Law on State Prosecutor and Draft Law on Kosovo Prosecutorial Council. The Draft Law on the Judicial Council of the Republic of Kosovo was approved on the 124th government meeting held on May 13th 2010, whereas the other two draft laws were approved on the 125th government meeting held on May 18th 2010.
Nevertheless, these three draft laws were not sent to the Kosovo Assembly until June 14th 2010. These draft laws were not made available to the public by the Government, on the grounds that they may only be publicly available after they are officially sent to the Kosovo Assembly. However, this rule is not based on any legal act. The legal officers in the Ministry of Justice claim that, ever since March 2009 when this ministry sent these draft laws to the Assembly, they were unable to access the modifications and supplements made to the draft laws. Therefore, they do not possess the draft laws in their final format as approved by the Government. According to these legal officers, it is most certain that the draft laws have been amended; or else, there are no reasons for them to be held at the Government for more than a year.
The Kosovo Government was under pressure to include in the content of the Draft Laws, one of the 6 points of the Document of the UN Secretary General, dated on June 12th 2008 – where according to point 2 of this document 'in the regions populated with Serbian majority, special courts may be founded which would operate under the Resolution 1244 of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC)”.
In the meantime, while the Kosovo Government has not made these draft laws publicly available and has not sent them to the Assembly either, their exact content remains uncertain. The disapproval of these laws was subject to criticism in the European Commissions' Progress Reports for Kosovo in the past three years. Likewise, these draft laws are also part of the legislative strategy of the Kosovo government since 2008.
