Basic Court in Pristina overloaded with anti-corruption case  

Prishtina, 1 Jun 2017– Lëvizja FOL has held a roundtable discussion on Judicial Performance in the fight of Anti-Corruption. Participants in this discussion were various actors in the judiciary in Kosovo, such as: Agim Maliqi from the KJC, chairman of the Kosovo Basic Courts, EULEX representatives, civil society organizations and the media..

Jeton Zulfaj of the Movement FOL said that measuring the efficiency of the judiciary in the field of anti-corruption has been done mainly relying on the methodology used by the European Commission on Efficiency of Justice but also on other methods.

According to him, the findings indicate that the Judiciary has shown a good performance in the fight against corruption in general. “In 2016, the judiciary had 639 cases of corruption. Out of these cases, 407 cases were transferred from 2015, 232 cases entered in 2016. The court has given justice to 284 cases. With this performance, the judiciary has solved more subjects than it received in 2016, “said Zulfaj.

However, due to the large number of cases transferred to some courts, as is the case with the Basic Court in Pristina, according to Zulfaj, the trend of leveling the cases will take a long time. “Based on the performance of the judiciary for 2016, the courts will be able to level up the cases carried forward in 2029,” he said.

Meanwhile Mr. Agim Maliqi from the KJC said that the report published by FOL is very detailed and these findings should be analyzed in detail by the KJC in order to improve the performance. “The priority is to increase citizens’ trust in the judiciary. According to the data Pristina is worse while Gjakova and Ferizaj are champions in solving the cases because they have given priority.

Beqir Kalludra from the Basic Court in Pristina said that this court has a problem with the large number of inherited cases. “In addition to inherited cases, we have problems with providing the parties in the procedure. We have EULEX cases, special prosecution in specific cases. It happens that a subject has 94 files. Prosecution has moved forward because it has profiled prosecutors. We have a lot of problems here, “said Kalludra, who suggested that cases over 10 years be judged by the serious crimes department by a judge.

Ali Kutllovci from the Basic Court in Mitrovica said that is success in this court but must also look at the working conditions. “In addition to the difficult working conditions, we have a problem because 12 judges have left their job in court,” Kutllovci said.

Jennifer Seel from EULEX said that this report is a good summary of numbers and I hope it will be annually enriched with other formulas where it will be more enriched.

This grant is funded by the Democratic Society Promotion Program (DSP) – funded by the Swiss Cooperation Office in Kosovo (SCO-K) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark (DANIDA) and managed by Kosovar Civil Society Foundation – KCSF