Prosecutions and courts increase performance in the fight against corruption

Prishtina, 31 May 2018 – Lëvizja FOL has held today a roundtable, whereupon the report on “The Performance of Judiciary and Prosecution in the Fight Against Corruption” for 2017 was published.

Jeton Zulfaj, programme manager form Lëvizja FOL said this is the second edition of the report “Beyond the Numbers”. Like last year, for the year 2017, Lëvizja FOL has done the measurement of prosecution and court performance in the fight against corruption. “Every day we face the term corruption and this year was very present because of the fact that remained the last criterion for visa liberalization. At the central level, prosecution offices and courts have shown positive performance in handling new corruption cases by solving more cases than they received during 2017 “, said Zulfaj.

According to Zulfaj, the report is statistical and Lëvizja FOL is offering an overview of Prosecutions and Courts to see and measure themselves, but the report cannot show how the cases have been solved.

Kosovo Prosecutorial Council Chairperson, Blerim Isufaj said that “The trend of solving cases is positive and that over 25%”. There is no dilemma that we have advanced, the budget has increased and 148 additional posts have been approved for administrative staff only.

On the other hand, the Judicial Council Chairman Nehat Idrizi said that “the Council has made efforts to combat corruption where we have initially established a working group and we have drafted an action plan for corruption cases, related to targeting, monitoring and reporting on the status of high-level corruption cases so-called perceived mechanism, and we have created a working group on corruption cases in the composition of judges. There is no dilemma that we have advanced, the budget has increased and 148 additional posts have been approved for administrative staff only. Both of these mechanisms serve the KJC and provide policy recommendations in the fight against corruption”.

The report finds that at the central level, the Prosecution Offices have had a positive performance and have increased their profits from 130% to 135% in dealing with corruption cases. Likewise, the courts have a positive performance even in 2017 with the resolution of corruption cases, however the courts have a declining performance when compared to 2016, which was 122% to 114% for 2017.

Misuse of official position or authority remains the most repeated offense of corruption, of which 826 persons are under investigation by the prosecution, nearly 90% of them belong to this criminal offense.

If corruption is seen through numbers, then in 2017 there is a decrease of more than 200 people under investigation by the prosecution for corruption. Of the 826 persons to whom there was a criminal indictment for corruption in 2016, this number has decrease to 622. This number is still high, indicating that corruption remains present.

The Special Prosecution Office had the best case resolution for 323%, followed by Pristina by 141%. However, both the Special Prosecution and the Pristina Prosecution continue to have a large number of transferred cases, which causes justice to be delayed

To see all the indicators on the performance of prosecutions and courts in the fight against corruption for 2017, read the report at www.levizjafol.org/publication.