The Chairmen Zharku and Xhemali must resign or be dismissed

Shpërndaje në:

Prishtina, April 22, 2011 – We, the civil society organizations through this statement express our full support to the work of the judiciary in handling sensitive cases involving senior state officials. Such a case we consider is the case of Mr. Xhabir Zharku, Mayor of Kacanik and Bajrush Xhemaili, Mayor of Ferizaj, both convicted for criminal offenses by the Courts of the Republic of Kosovo.

According to Article 56 paragraph (h) of the Law on Local Government, the Mayor’s mandate ends if convicted of a criminal offense with a warrant for imprisonment for six (6) months or more. According to this article, there is no need to wait until a final decision of the Judiciary as claimed, but there is sufficient legal basis for dismissal of the mayorsf Xhemaili and Zharku if they do not resign.

While the judiciary has done its own work in these two cases, Mr. Zharku and Mr. Xhemaili did not let us know that they will respect the decision of the Court. Our organizations consider unacceptable the attempts to ignore or disregard the Court’s decision by senior officials of the Republic of Kosovo.

We consider such behaviour as blackmail against the justice authorities and mining of the efforts to establish the rule of law in Kosovo. Placement of individual interest above laws and decisions of the Judiciary should be unacceptable for a democratic society.

We appeal to the Government of the Republic of Kosovo, that in accordance to Article 64.1 and 64.3 of the Law on Local Government, to immediately suspend and then dismiss the Mayor of Kacanik Mr. Xhabir Zharku and the mayor of Ferizaj Mr. Bajrush Xhemaili if the latter refuse to resign.

Center for Policy and Advocacy (QPA), Foreign Policy Club, Initiative for Progress (INPO), Syri i Vizionit (SIV), Prishtina Institute for Political Studies (PIPS), Youth Initiative for Human Rights (YIHR ), Movement FOL, Kosovo Centre for International Cooperation (KCIC)